The House met at 2 o’clock, p.m.

Prayers.

Hon. W. Newman (Minister of the Environment): Mr. Speaker, I hope the Legislature will join me in welcoming some 70 students from Henry St. High School in Whitby with their teacher Mr. Greening. This is a group of distinguished, capable young people coming from the riding of Ontario South.

Mr. E. P. Morningstar (Welland): Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of personal privilege to make a statement regarding a news item in the Globe and Mail concerning Quinn Truck Lines Ltd.

I only did what I was elected to do -- endeavour to help those who request my assistance, regardless of politics. In the Quinn Truck Lines case, my main concern was for continued employment, not only for people who live in my riding but for others as well.

In my 24 years of representing the people of the great Welland riding, I have never even considered going over a cabinet minister’s head to see the Prime Minister on any matter.

Mr. R. F. Nixon (Leader of the Opposition): That’s it? Trudeau would be glad of that.

ESTIMATES

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): Mr. Speaker, I have a message from the Honourable Lieutenant Governor signed by her own hand.

Mr. Speaker: By her own hand. Pauline M. McGibbon, the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor, transmits estimates of certain sums required for the services of the province for the year ending March 31, 1976, and recommends them to the legislative assembly, Toronto, on April 21, 1975.

Statements by the ministry.

HOME BUYER GRANT

Hon. A. K. Meen (Minister of Revenue): Mr. Speaker, the Act to provide for the payment of grants to first-time home buyers received royal assent last Friday. An initial supply of 3,000 application forms is available. Today, I have distributed a package of 20 of these application forms to each of the members of the House.

Application forms are available to the public by writing to the Ministry of Revenue, Ontario Home Buyers Grant, Queen’s Park, Toronto, M7A 2C9. Also, individuals in the Metro Toronto area may phone 965-8470 for information. Outside Metro, callers may dial the operator and ask for Zenith 8-2000.

Provisional applications and an explanatory letter have already gone to law firms and real estate officers across the province, and the finalized application forms with an explanation of changes in the form will be sent out as soon as possible. By early next week, bulk shipments of the application forms will be available to lawyers and realtors upon request.

Within two weeks, an information kit will be available for distribution on request. This kit will include a booklet explaining the programme, an application form and a return envelope.

Should my colleagues wish to have further information, 1 would ask them to call Mr. Nestor Yurchuk, director of the guaranteed income and tax credit branch of my ministry at 965-0111.

OCCUPATIONAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH COUNCIL

Hon. A. Grossman (Provincial Secretary for Resources Development): Mr. Speaker, this government is initiating a new approach to protect Ontario workers and residents from occupational and environmental health hazards caused by industrial activities.

Recognizing that employers, workers, unions, community groups and government are all responsible in achieving successful protective and preventive measures, we are establishing an advisory council on occupational and environmental health matters.

This body will provide the formal mechanism for industry, labour and other interested parties to advise government on health hazards, as well as to recommend new policies and programmes. It will assist government in defining how health safeguards can be engineered into plants at the design stage. It will also be a central reference source for public information about all aspects of occupational and environmental health.

The success of effective occupational and environmental health measures depends on the co-operation and support of responsible non-government groups. Employers have a direct responsibility for ensuring and maintaining proper health standards, for monitoring their own industrial emissions, and for training and education at the plant level as well as on an industry-wide basis. Labour has a direct interest in the provision of occupational health education, the encouragement of workers in accepting health standards and procedures, and the right to participate meaningfully in the development of the acceptable safeguards.

The Minister of Health (Mr. Miller), to whom the advisory council will report, will be announcing further details on the structure, membership and responsibilities of the advisory council on occupational and environmental health, to ensure that it is a strong voice in future programmes.

The government is also moving more aggressively to strengthen its own activities in occupational and environmental health. Greater emphasis will be placed on the prevention of known health hazards through the setting of guidelines and the search for unknown health hazards in industrial processes.

The focal point for the setting of standards and for research as it applies to human health will be the Ministry of Health, specifically the occupational health protection branch. The Ministry of Health will have clearly delineated responsibilities to assure that standards are properly applied.

The decision to assign standard-setting and applied research to the Ministry of Health clarifies which ministry is primarily responsible for determining the effects of industrial emissions on human physiology, although the Ministry of Health will, of course, consult with other agencies.

We are examining our future needs for professionally trained people in industrial medicine and industrial hygiene. Obviously, sufficient competent and knowledgeable trained staff are essential to the success of the expanded system of occupational and environmental health.

An important new development is that the Ministry of Health will publish every year its guidelines on in-plant emissions and out-of-plant ambient conditions. This annual disclosure of information will mean that industry and labour are fully aware of applicable standards. It should also increase public availability of health standards information. Ministries and government agencies will incorporate these official standards in appropriate legislation and regulations.

The Ministry of Labour, in concert with the Ministry of Health, will continue to conduct reviews to ensure that adequate measures are being taken to protect the health of the workers.

And, Mr. Speaker, we intend to strengthen the government’s inspection, monitoring and enforcement of health standards within all industrial plants.

Mr. W. Ferrier (Cochrane South): What about the mines?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The Labour Safety Act and the Mining Act will, if warranted, be broadened through legislative amendments as necessary to include health safeguards in new plants before they are completed.

Mr. S. Lewis (Scarborough West): It is certainly warranted.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I might add that responsibility for inspecting, monitoring and enforcing health standards outside the plant remains with the Ministry of the Environment.

We recognize that health hazards from industrial processes often take a long time to show up in humans -- as long as 20 to 30 years in some cases. This raises difficulties in tracing former workers who may be the victims of previously unidentified in-plant health hazards. Furthermore, the mobility of workers makes it difficult to establish industry liability for health problems that emerge many years later. We want to ensure that no worker’s claim for compensation is weakened by job mobility and choice of work. Therefore, we are examining ways of requiring employers in specified industries -- including mining, chemicals, and other companies currently using known hazardous substances -- to keep exposure records on employees, the type of work performed, employment location in the plant and the equipment used.

Mr. E. W. Martel (Sudbury East): That’s like putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank!

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, in view of this consolidated new approach to occupational and environmental health, we will be examining the existing compensation benefits for individuals. It is anticipated that the commission of inquiry into the health and safety of working conditions, and the working environment in mines, will have some constructive recommendations in this regard.

The new occupational and environmental health system I have outlined today will clearly define ministries’ functions in the total prevention and protection programme. It will also mobilize a much more effective inspec-monitoring and enforcement process.

Mr. Lewis: I think it’s applaudable, but I’m not sure. It’s about time. It’s been a long haul.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Just before we continue, I recognize the member for Fort William.

Mr. J. H. Jessiman (Fort William): Mr. Speaker, through you, I would like to introduce a class of 30 students from McKellar Park Central School in Thunder Bay south, and their teacher and three adults who are visiting with us in the west gallery today.

Mr. Speaker: The member for York Mills.

Mr. D. A. Bales (York Mills): Mr. Speaker, may I join in the same type of situation and introduce the students from Zion Heights secondary school to the Legislature today.

Mr. H. C. Parrott (Oxford): May I introduce from Ingersoll a group of ladies visiting the Legislature from that community, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: May I specially request from all hon. members in the future to please have their introductions ready if possible immediately after prayers.

FLOOD CONTROL MEASURES

Hon. L. Bernier (Minister of Natural Resources): Mr. Speaker, as members of this House are aware, we experienced a flood crisis over this past weekend in southwestern Ontario. I would like to inform you on the situation, Mr. Speaker, and what steps were taken by those concerned, including my own ministry, as well as to advise you on the outlook throughout the province for further spring flooding.

The happy news is that, in general, flood damage was relatively light over the weekend. However, I do fully appreciate the difficulties some residents have suffered, especially those living close to the flood plain areas.

The intense storm that moved across southern Ontario Friday night poured down from one to 1.5 in. of rain in most areas, with a few locations getting as much as 2 in. This rainfall combined with the melting of the heavy snow packs in the Snowbelt area in Grey, Dufferin and Wellington counties, and the combination made for some very high levels indeed on some rivers.

And yet, the co-ordinated effect of preplanning for flood control, awareness of flood-prone areas, alerting of conservation authority staff and municipal officials involved, as well as the co-operation of the general public and ensuring availability of equipment, all played a major part in keeping flood damage to the minimum. On some rivers, the flows were the highest recorded in more than 20 years, with the --

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): They were lucky it didn’t rain all weekend, as was predicted.

Hon. W. A. Stewart (Minister of Agriculture and Food): Weren’t we all lucky it didn’t rain all weekend?

Mr. Speaker: Order please. The hon. minister will continue his statement.

Mr. Deans: That is the only thing that saved them. They were lucky it didn’t rain, as was predicted.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Purveyors of gloom, that’s what the NDP are. Disasters and gloom; that’s what they feed on.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: That’s quite right.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, on some rivers the flows were the highest recorded in more than 20 years, with the Nith River recording an all-time high level. The result was moderate to severe flooding along such streams and rivers as the Maitland, Saugeen, North Sydenham, Beaver, Nottawasaga, Grand and North Thames.

Those centres which had flooding problems included Montrose, Bridgeport, New Hamburg, Ayr and Paris on the Grand; St. Marys on the Thames; Listowel, Wingham and Harriston on the Maitland; and Walkerton, Mount Forest and Paisley on the Saugeen.

The major damage problem seems to be the flooding of house basements and the first-floor level of factories built on the flood plain.

On the Saugeen River, two small old mill dams were washed out at Neustadt and Teeswater, and the bridge on Highway 6 at Mount Forest was closed because of undercutting of one of the abutments.

Further and much more severe damage was prevented because these steps were taken in advance:

My ministry warned all conservation authorities earlier this year about the impending seasonal crisis situation.

When the storm which struck Friday afternoon was seen heading this way, my ministry alerted conservation authorities and municipal officials -- so the flood danger was well anticipated by all responsible parties.

At 4 p.m. that day, a warning for southern Ontario was issued to the news media advising a careful flood watch to be maintained by all people living alongside streams and rivers. This warning was also being accompanied on local radio stations by weather warnings of predicted heavy rain, to fully warn all those persons and officials concerned.

At 4 a.m. Saturday morning, April 19, a flood forecast was again issued by my ministry to the news media, particularly radio, advising that rivers and streams throughout southern Ontario from Lake Huron eastward to the Ottawa Valley, were rising rapidly because of the previous night’s heavy rain. The forecast also predicted the flooding along the Maitland, Saugeen, Beaver, North Thames and Grand Rivers in western Ontario as well as the South Nation River in the Ottawa Valley.

The result of this organized warning was that many volunteers as well as officials were on the watch and ready to cope with serious flooding if it were to occur. Happily, it did not in most places.

I would like to congratulate all those who worked together to confront the flood danger. It was a weekend which showed how better prepared we are than in the past in parts of our province where flooding is prone to occur.

As for the outlook for the immediate future, Mr. Speaker, this is the situation according to the conservation authorities branch experts:

In southwestern Ontario, the flood water has reached the Great Lakes or is approaching them, or has subsided throughout the area. Because no precipitation is expected in the next few days, flows on all rivers are expected to return to normal quite soon.

In the central and northern parts of the province, however, the situation is different. The still heavy snow-packs in those areas absorbed the rainfall of Friday’s storm, and were followed by temperatures much below freezing after the storm, so the melt has not happened yet. My ministry’s officials are keeping a close watch on potential danger areas in those parts, and problems could occur when weather conditions bring on melting of the snowpack.

The only exception would be the small stream on the north shore of Lake Ontario, which had big flows but no major floods during this past weekend, and, as in southwestern Ontario, problems are not anticipated there in the near future.

Mr. Speaker, this concludes my report on the flood situation in the province.

Mr. Speaker: Oral questions. The Leader of the Opposition.

FLOOD DAMAGE ASSISTANCE

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister of Natural Resources if he can assure the residents of those communities that suffered flood damage over the weekend that the assistance programme that was approved a year ago will be in force this year, at least that level of assistance, so that the people in communities such as Plattsville and Ayr can be assured they are going to have the same kind of assistance for home damage and business damage?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, as I pointed out in my statement, there was a minimum amount of damage done. When I receive a full report from all those areas where flooding did occur, then I will certainly take it to the government for that decision.

Mr. Deans: That depends on who you are.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, a supplementary: Is the minister trying to tell us there wasn’t sufficient damage to warrant a programme; that there will be no assistance?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I haven’t a full report on the extent of the damage. I am waiting for that now.

Mr. Speaker: Supplementary, the member for Wentworth.

Mr. Deans: Can I ask the minister whether he’s talking in terms of a minimum amount because there weren’t a sufficient number of people who suffered damages? Or does he mean that individuals, who suffered damage just as severe as they did last year, will therefore not be able to recover from it?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, the members are very much aware of the assistance programme we have where disaster occurs --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: It ought to be automatic.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Yes -- and when we get a full report on the details of the damage that is occurring, then we’ll make a decision and follow the plans that we’ve used in the past.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Just don’t go back to the Minister of Agriculture and Food’s formula of a dollar for a dollar.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Huron-Bruce.

Mr. M. Gaunt (Huron-Bruce): A supplementary, Mr. Speaker: When does the minister anticipate receiving that report? What time frame are we talking about with respect to the report?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, I would hope to have that within a matter of the next few days.

Mr. Speaker: Are there any further questions, from the Leader of the Opposition?

Mr. Deans: Can I ask a supplementary question? I have one other supplementary. Is it possible there is going to be some kind of overall government programme to try to eliminate the problem, rather than have this recurring year after year? And does the minister realize that if the rain had continued on Saturday, the flooding would have been far more severe?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, I’m sure the hon. member is not totally aware of the magnitude of this particular problem of controlling flood plains in southern Ontario --

Mr. Deans: I sure am.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: It’s a mammoth undertaking. It’s something we’ve been working on for dozens of years, and we still haven’t got it corralled. It’s going to take a long time yet to have it fully under control and it’s going to take massive amounts of money.

Mr. Speaker: The Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. Lewis: Did the minister say “corral”? He is corralling the floods, is he? Does he think of himself as Canute?

Mr. V. M. Singer (Downsview): He’s going to pass a statute that there will be no more rains.

QUINN ENTERPRISES

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I would like to ask the Minister of Revenue if he can explain why his ministry approved the renewal of the fuel tax permit for Quinn Enterprises and Quinn Truck Lines when they were in arrears in their payments under the Motor Vehicle Fuel Tax Act to the amount of approximately $200,000. Was there political interference that indicated the ministry should approve such a renewal under these rather strange circumstances?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Speaker, I would never for one minute suggest there was any kind of political interference. Certainly there were factors to be considered when I looked at the question of the maintenance of the licence.

Mr. Lewis: What does that mean, political factors?

Hon. Mr. Meen: The preservation of jobs. To simply shut down that company, which would have happened if the licence had been terminated, would have done two things. I’m advised it would have thrown upwards of 35, and perhaps more, employees out of work.

Secondly, if the businesses were then closed up --

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): The ministry would never get paid.

Hon. Mr. Meen: -- it would be more difficult for it to be disposed of as a going concern. Therefore, I felt it was in the best interests of the province, as well as of the employees, that at least with the proposed refinancing arrangements that were put to me over the months, there should be some kind of extension of time given to the operator --

Mr. Lewis: Pretty weak.

Mr. Lawlor: How long did the minister give them to pay?

Hon. Mr. Meen: -- in order to give him time to complete the refinancing and to pay off the liabilities, which included those to the Ministry of Revenue.

Mr. Speaker: Are there any further questions?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: As a supplementary, if I may: Is the minister aware that a number of other companies have applied for PCVs to take over that business on a phased basis, and in each case they have been opposed by Quinn and the applications have been turned down on the basis of the opposition coming from that source? Would the minister not agree that government policy could have transferred this trucking business to other lines, rather than permitting this ridiculous situation to go on? How is he going to get the money back?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Speaker, I’m not aware that other applications for PGVs were opposed by Quinn Truck Lines. My understanding was that Mr. Quinn himself had an application before the Board of Transport Commissioners for approval of certain PCV licensing, pursuant to which it was expected, his mortgage financing would then be approved by the lenders he had lined up, if I can use a colloquial expression.

Mr. Lewis: A supplementary, if I may --

Mr. Speaker: Order please. The member for Scarborough West has a supplementary.

Mr. Lewis: A supplementary: When the minister entered into the refinancing arrangements, was he not concerned about the position of the Quinn companies financially and the various court judgements? Just from simple curiosity, what prompted him to undertake the refinancing? What prompted him to allow the effective remission of the tax, which he must have suspected he would never collect given the financial situation he was faced with? The second thing, did the government of Ontario hold any mortgage?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Speaker the government of Ontario holds two warrants which one simply issues under the Act. We didn’t go to court for those warrants. Those warrants were issued pursuant to provisions of the Act and applied to the Quinn Truck Line property, to the real estate itself.

Mr. M. Shulman (High Park): Did it come ahead of the first mortgage?

Hon. Mr. Meen: With those moneys being exigible under the warrants, I suppose we could have closed them up right then. But that was not in the best interests of all concerned, as I saw it.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: It was not in the best interest of Quinn.

Mr. Lewis: People certainly are not given this consideration in most other cases.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Hon. Mr. Meen: What was arranged was that in addition to those warrants on the Quinn Truck Line properties, the ministry took a mortgage to secure a very substantial part. In fact, it was a mortgage to secure the total amount of the liability existing at the time it was arranged. That involved some $113,000, not only on the Quinn Truck Lines properties but on personally-owned property of Mr. Quinn, another 90 acres or so. So that not only did we have the warrants on the properties of the Quinn Truck Lines, we had a mortgage at nine per cent.

Mr. Shulman: Is it a first mortgage or a secondary mortgage?

Hon. Mr. Meen: It is a secondary mortgage, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Shulman: It is worth nothing then.

Mr. Lewis: A secondary mortgage they have?

Hon. Mr. Meen: A secondary mortgage for nine per cent, due one year from that time -- with the expectation that it would indeed enlarge the security of the ministry pending the ultimate refinancing as was expressed.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Mr. Lewis: I have another question.

Mr. Speaker: Order please. The hon. member for Essex-Kent with a supplementary question.

Mr. R. F. Ruston (Essex-Kent): Mr. Speaker, a supplementary: Could the minister tell me, since he had $200,000 owing from Quinn Truck Lines last November when I asked him a question at that time, can he tell me how much he has collected since then, and has any of the interest been paid on the second mortgage the government has taken?

Hon. Mr. Meen: At some stage or other the sum of $5,000 was paid, Mr. Speaker; I think it occurred before that time.

Mr. Deans: That is the approximate amount?

Hon. Mr. Meen: That is the approximate amount that is still outstanding.

Mr. Singer: Supplementary.

Mr. Shulman: Supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: The member for High Park.

Mr. Shulman: Is it not true that the first mortgage on the property, which is owned other than by the government, is in excess of the value of the property, and that the second mortgage is worthless?

Mr. Lewis: Completely worthless; the government knows that anyway.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Speaker, not on the basis of the assessments my ministry has on that property. As a going concern, we felt we had sufficient security.

Mr. Deans: That doesn’t sound very good.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Downsview, a final supplementary.

Mr. Singer: Mr. Speaker, since the minister apparently is not familiar with the various appearances of Quinn before the Ontario Highway Transport Board, could he undertake to inquire into those appearances, and discuss with his colleague, the Minister of Transportation and Communications (Mr. Rhodes), and perhaps with Mr. Shoniker, Quinn’s various appearances there and determine whether or not it is reasonable that Quinn should have been able to have successfully opposed over a number of years applications of others for PCV licences, in order that he keep those others who were truck owners serving him rather than being able to serve themselves?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Speaker, I think that question should be more appropriately directed to the Minister of Transportation and Communications.

Mr. Martel: Conveniently, he is out.

Mr. Speaker: Does the Leader of the Opposition have further questions?

GASOLINE TAX ARREARS

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, I’d like to ask a new question of the minister on a subject directly related. Since we established the Ministry of Revenue to look after the collection of our provincial revenues, perhaps on a closer, more professional basis than was possible when it was under the Treasury, how can this minister explain to the House and the taxpayers of this province that he would allow one taxpayer to get into arrears by $200,000 under these particular circumstances? Surely that’s an indication of serious bad judgement in the administration of the Motor Vehicle Fuel Tax Act?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Speaker, as our auditors do their inspections these liabilities with some of the taxpayers, I suppose, come to light. Steps are taken. Steps were taken from the very beginning in this instance with the issue of the first warrant, which is on record with the sheriff there; some $79,000 or so is involved. These negotiations and steps were taken at the very first hearing to bring into question whether the licence under the Motor Vehicle Fuel Tax Act should be continued or should be revoked, so we were taking steps.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Since the record under these circumstances is so astonishingly bad, including political interference in this situation, has the minister in his position as being in charge of revenue looked into the status of the remissions from this same source having to do with other taxing responsibilities? This would include the licensed premises owned by Quinn, operated under the Liquor Licence Act of the Province of Ontario; can the minister assure us these other responsibilities are not as seriously in default as the first ones are?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Speaker, I think the question of responsibilities for remission of tax under other licensing statutes that are not in my ministry should be more appropriately raised with the minister to whom the responsibility does fall.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: This Minister of Revenue has nothing to do with it?

Hon. Mr. Meen: I have responsibility in the Ministry of Revenue for certain of these statutes, but I think the question could be properly placed elsewhere.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Who is responsible for patronage?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Scarborough West.

Mr. Lewis: I have a question which is in three parts, if I may. One, how did the Ministry of Revenue allow the arrears to rise from $79,000 to $200,000, when its auditors had apparently discovered the initial problem? Two, are there any other tax debts of a comparable kind with a comparable company anywhere in Ontario? And third, are there any other mortgages held by the ministry in comparable circumstances?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Speaker, I think I probably have already answered the first question, at least in part, because over the period of time, as this liability grew and with the arrangements taken for further security, it was felt the revenues to the province were adequately secured without having to put the operator out of business.

Mr. Lawlor: Why does the ministry go further into the hole?

Mr. Lewis: And they were secure? The minister has a very frivolous view of the security of the province.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Meen: The security appeared to be there and I think it still is there.

Mr. Lewis: It still is there?

Mr. Lawlor: What will it be, $500,000 before the minister is finished?

Hon. Mr. Meen: The member was asking are there any others; Mr. Speaker, I honestly don’t know. I don’t think there is anything of this nature anyway --

Mr. Lewis: Nothing of equal magnitude?

Hon. Mr. Meen: -- that has come to my attention.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The member for High Park says --

Hon. Mr. Meen: But yes, in the case of mortgages indeed I am advised that the ministry has over the years taken quite a number of mortgages of a comparable nature to secure liabilities.

Mr. Lewis: Can the minister name them?

Hon. Mr. Meen: No, I’m not in a position to name them, Mr. Speaker. I suppose it’s public in the sense that mortgages are registered, but I don’t have that information at hand.

Mr. Lewis: But the minister could get it?

Hon. Mr. Meen: I would think it is available.

Mr. Speaker: Does the Leader of the Opposition have further questions?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker: I think we’ve spent enough time on this question. There will be time for new questions perhaps.

ALLEGED CONFLICT OF INTEREST BY PROVINCIAL JUDCE

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I’d like to ask the Provincial Secretary for Justice if he can inform the House as to his opinion, or the opinion of the law officers of the Crown, on the alleged conflict of interest involving provincial Judge Rodger Gordon in St. Catharines.

Hon. J. T. Clement (Provincial Secretary for Justice): Yes Mr. Speaker, I read the article which appeared on Saturday last which said that Judge Gordon was linked with the defendant in a particular matter, the defendant, I think, being Mr. Quinn.

Thomas Quinn is an officer and director of Quinn Truck Lines Ltd. who is facing certain charges under the Public Commercial Vehicles Act. On Friday last he appeared before Judge Gordon in St. Catharines. Judge Gordon was advised there would be a request made of the court on that occasion for an adjournment; and he did, in fact, grant the adjournment. I think the request was made by the Crown with notice to Mr. Quinn’s solicitor; it was adjourned by Judge Gordon over to some time in May.

The connection, the link as the paper said, was that Judge Gordon was an officer and director of a company called Lealta Investments Ltd. and Lealta Investments had, in fact, some three years ago put a mortgage on certain of the lands of Mr. Quinn or one of his limited companies. The inference was there could be a conflict because he appeared before Judge Gordon who was a shareholder and a director and officer of that mortgage.

Now I suggest, and state very clearly, that there was no conflict There was no adjudication. It had nothing to do with the mortgage. It was completely unrelated. There was no conflict whatsoever.

I had the chief judge of the province look into this matter this morning and he advised that Judge Gordon in fact resigned as an officer and director of Lealta Investments prior to being sworn in, and offered his financial interest in that firm for sale to some 48 other people, the co-shareholders in that company, but that the company itself has not had a formal meeting of directors since that tendering or offering of the submitting of the resignation was put in. There hasn’t been a directors’ meeting, therefore it has not been formally accepted by the directors and conveyed on to the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations here in Toronto.

We perceive absolutely no conflict. The matters are unrelated. There is nothing improper in the conduct of Judge Gordon. I point out that he will not be seized of the matter when it is dealt with later on in May, or such date subsequent to that to which it is adjourned. He was merely a conduit pipe through which the matter had to be adjourned on Friday last.

But the chief judge informed my office this morning that Judge Gordon, in view of the article in the newspaper, has requested that the board of directors of Lealta formally accept his resignation immediately, which was tendered prior to his being sworn in about five weeks ago.

Mr. Deans: Why didn’t he step down from the case?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Surely the Attorney General in his position must be able to assure the House that judges should be directed, either through the chief judge or by the Attorney General himself, that it is not enough to say there is no conflict of interest, but that there can be no appearance whatsoever of a judge being involved in any aspect of responsibility for a business sitting on any aspect of a judgement associated with it.

Mr. Speaker: Does the Leader of the Opposition have a question in that?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: It is clearly the sort of thing, would the minister not agree, that simply must be stopped and about which the judges must be so informed without any equivocation.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I couldn’t agree more. Justice. like everything else, must appear to be administered by people who are as Caesar’s wife. May I point out that Judge Gordon was sworn in about five weeks ago. He was made aware that he must sever his business connection.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: He should have divided himself that day.

Hon. Mr. Clement: He submitted his resignation prior to his taking the oath of office.

Mr. Deans: Then he shouldn’t hear the case.

Hon. Mr. Clement: He’s now in that transitional period between termination of practice and embarking on his responsibilities at the bench over which he sits. There is absolutely no conflict or connection, and surely the hon. Leader of the Opposition must realize this. There is absolutely nothing to do with his having been identified with a company that held a mortgage on someone’s home or business --

Mr. Lewis: Of course there is. There is everything to do with it.

Hon. Mr. Clement: -- any more than if the judge was a shareholder in a chartered bank that in fact held a mortgage on the home or the business of a person appearing before him in the courts.

An hon. member: How about loan sharks?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: We’ve got to put an end to this.

Mr. Speaker: Order please. The member for Scarborough West with his supplementary first.

Mr. Lewis: I find it hard to believe of the minister. Is he saying that in his own mind he is satisfied that the judge will do the right thing, to have the shareholders meet suddenly so that he divests himself of his interest, so that he can then sit on the case? Doesn’t it make more sense to the minister, in the interests of natural justice, that he withdraw from this case, since at one point in time, he had a business relationship, and leave it to someone else? Wouldn’t that make more sense?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, it is not a matter of his withdrawing from the case.

Mr. Lewis: From hearing the case.

Hon. Mr. Clement: He is not going to hear it; he never was intended to hear it in the first place. He merely was in court when the request was made that the mailer be adjourned from Friday last over to some date in May, which was agreed upon between counsel for the Crown and counsel for the defendant in that matter.

Mr. Lewis: So he will not hear it?

Hon. Mr. Clement: No, he was not intending to hear it at all.

The resignation that was submitted by Judge Gordon prior to his taking oath of office, was in fact submitted, and I suggest was effective, as of that date.

Mr. Singer: Oh, nonsense.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I say that the company directors have not formally sat down and met, but that doesn’t affect the resignation. As of the day that that was received by the directors, that is the day that it was effective. But it is not reflected in the corporate records here because the company directors haven’t met and transmitted it over here as is required under the Business Corporations Act.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: So he has a legal responsibility --

Mr. Speaker: Supplementary. The member for Downsview.

Mr. Singer: Mr. Speaker, would the Attorney General not agree that the judge is in breach of the provisions of section 12, subsection 1, of the Provincial Courts Act which say, “subject to subsection 2, unless authorized by the Lieutenant Governor in Council,” and I presume there was no such authorization, “a judge shall not practise or actively engage in any business, trade or occupation but shall devote the whole of his time and performance to his duties as a judge.” Is that not the conflict that the judge was guilty of?

Hon. Mr. Clement: No, absolutely not; because as of the day that he took his oath of office -- I forget the date in March -- he was no longer a director of that company.

Mr. Singer: That’s not company law at all.

Hon. Mr. Clement: He had submitted his resignation as a director and officer of that company.

Mr. Singer: He is still a director until the board accepts his resignation.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I state this unequivocally so there will be no confusion in anyone’s mind. At the same time, he advised co-shareholders of that company that he was taking an appointment to the bench and that he would like to dispose of his interest in that particular company. This mortgage was put on, I believe, some three years ago when Judge Gordon was practising law in St. Catharines.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Hon. Mr. Clement: When he decided to take his appointment to the bench, he then resigned and offered his interest in that particular business for sale. It is just as simple as that. He is not carrying on business. He does not intend to carry on business. He has terminated all his professional business, be it in forms of investment or practice. Of course, there is no conflict of interest.

Mr. Speaker: Does the Leader of the Opposition have any further questions? The member for Scarborough West with his questions.

OCCUPATIONAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH COUNCIL

Mr. Lewis: Yes; I have, first, a question of the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development. Will the Ministry of Natural Resources continue to be the enforcement agency for the standards now to be established by the Minister of Health in the mining industry?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, that would depend upon which responsibilities the hon. member is referring to. Is he talking about the health responsibilities?

Mr. Lewis: I’m talking about enforcement of levels of dust emission, levels of --

Hon. Mr. Grossman: That would be the Ministry of Health.

Mr. Lewis: Does the minister mean that, other than the distinction he drew about the Ministry of the Environment’s enforced monitoring and enforcing outside the plant, the Ministry of Health will have all other responsibilities?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: In respect of health matters.

Mr. Lewis: In respect of health matters. Does that mean that the Ministry of Health will enforce the regulation of dust emissions and other emissions in the mining industry which could be hazardous to health?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, that’s the intention.

Mr. Lewis: Well that’s a first-rate improvement, if it happens.

Mr. Martel: A supplementary question.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Sudbury East.

Mr. Martel: Will the Ministry of Health have to go through the Ministry of Natural Resources before conducting any type of investigation? For example, with respect to a hearing, would the request have to come from the Ministry of Natural Resources to do that type of investigation?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is going into some particular detail to which I would hesitate to give him a reply before discussing it with both the ministers involved. But off the top of my head, and I will take a chance in saying it, I would think that the Minister of Health; having regard for his responsibilities under our new programme, would have the right to walk in or have his people walk in --

Mr. Lewis: Good.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: -- without regard to the ministry dealing with mines. But I want to leave it open there, because the hon. member has asked a question --

Mr. Lewis: The Minister of Natural Resources is nodding his head.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: -- which hasn’t been dealt with specifically; but that is, generally speaking, our intention.

Mr. Lewis: I have one other supplementary relating to the announcement. Is it the minister’s intention, or does he believe the Minister of Health in the establishment of the advisory council will be calling on members of the work force organized or unorganized of a non-corporate kind?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: It certainly is the intention to have labour representation on the council itself.

Mr. Lewis: When is that further announcement to be made?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: We are just getting this under way. I can’t give the hon. member a specific date, but just as soon as it is possible. The ministries involved are working on this programme at this very moment.

Mr. Mattel: Supplementary question.

Mr. Speaker: Supplementary.

Mr. Mattel: Yes. Would the ministry consider the establishment of in-plant committees so that they could report directly to the advisory committee he is now about to introduce?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I would think Mr. Speaker, this could probably be a matter which could be recommended to the advisory council and be discussed at that time so that they could give an opinion on it.

LEAD POLLUTION

Mr. Lewis: I have a question of the Minister of the Environment. Does he think the new advisory council on health would be pleased by the special privileged extension of time which he gave to the lead smelters to extend to April 29 next the control order which he issued? Why did the minister give that special extension of time to Toronto Refiners and Smelters; and how is it that he is having productive talks with Ian Outerbridge, their counsel? What kind of deal is he arranging?

An hon. member: How can he have talks about this?

Hon. W. Newman: Mr. Speaker, first and foremost, we are making no deals. Second, the reason for the extension of time was that our director was away for a few days and we extended the time, I believe, from April 19 to April 25 or 29 or whatever it is. That was the reason. He was away and we wanted to give him a chance to sit down and discuss the notice of intent on this control order on Toronto Refiners and Smelters.

Mr. Lewis: The minister would agree that it is impossible to have productive talks with Ian Outerbridge, wouldn’t he?

Hon. W. Newman: Mr. Speaker, I would agree that we should have productive talks with all industry. I didn’t know we were talking with Mr. Outerbridge, but with all industries we have productive talks. We have worked out control orders with companies which have been satisfactory to the people of this province.

PAYMENT TO ENVIRONICS RESEARCH GROUP

Mr. Lewis: Can I ask the Minister of Education: Does he know what was provided by the Environics Research Group Ltd. in the 1972-1973 public accounts year which would have cost his ministry $128,700?

Hon. T. L. Wells (Minister of Education): Mr. Speaker, that group had a contract -- I believe the contract was issued before I became Minister of Education and assumed this portfolio -- to survey the parents, the students and the teachers of this province in quite a detailed survey of their comments and opinions on the educational system of the province.

Mr. Lewis: I see. Did the Minister of Education know, since he has looked back on it, that Environics Research Group Ltd. was also commissioned by this government at the transition point -- when the Premier (Mr. Davis) was Minister of Education and then became Premier -- to do a study on the effects of violence and obscenity in film and television, with a complete review of the literature? Can he tell us what has happened to that study for which Ontario paid $21,750?

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, I have no knowledge of that study. It is not part of the studies I am knowledgeable about.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Did they find that violence was bad or good?

Hon. Mr. Wells: I don’t know. I know nothing of that study. I have the other studies. The study done by Environics with parents in this province was made public a couple of years ago.

Mr. Lewis: One other supplementary: Has it been brought to his attention that they made the study of obscenity, violence and the censorship of film and it involved a critical evaluation of the research findings of the social and behavioural sciences -- all of the material on television as well -- regarding the effects of exposure to violent and sexually explicit stimuli on the individual and on social and cultural life; that some 800 people in Ontario were surveyed; that the study resulted in two full volumes; that it was commissioned while the Premier was Minister of Education and provided after he became Premier? In light of all we have heard about the interest in violence in our culture and its effects, how is it that that study has never been made public? Will the minister undertake to make it public?

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, is my friend insinuating that this study is in the Ministry of Education?

Mr. Lewis: Yes, I am. I am insinuating it is within the government The Premier knows about it.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I am just saying I can’t recall having ever seen this study. I have no knowledge that it was ever commissioned and I have never seen it.

Mr. R. S. Smith (Nipissing): The minister had better get onto his staff, that’s all.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I have seen the studies undertaken by Environics -- I don’t want there to be any doubt about that -- in regard to the school system and parents, students and teachers. These studies are available. I have seen them.

Mr. Lewis: One final supplementary: Perhaps since the ministry paid $12,400 -- that’s about 48 days of Judy LaMarsh --

Hon. Mr. Grossman: We are not going to get much violence for $12,000.

Mr. Singer: No rent.

Mr. Lewis: -- and that’s without rent, research assistance or anything else -- since the minister has already paid $12,400 of the $21,000, does he think he could get hold of that study for us and table it in the Legislature so that the public of Ontario could know what preliminary work has been done?

Hon. Mr. Wells: Is the member referring to the study that he is indicating was commissioned, concerning violence and the effects of violence?

Mr. Lewis: By the government, yes.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I have no knowledge of that study at this point in time but I will look into it and find out for my friend.

Mr. Lewis: Thanks very much.

Mr. Speaker: Further questions?

GRAVEL LICENCE APPLICATION

Mr. Lewis: One last question of the Minister of Natural Resources: On March 26 last he indicated to me that a gravel licence application on the part of Mr. Sam Manetta for a licence in Pontypool bad not yet been granted because it was to go before the Ontario Municipal Board for a hearing. Since the board has heard the application and recommended against issuance of the licence, has the minister officially refused the licence?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, I have not seen the report from the Ontario Municipal Board yet. I believe I have 30 days in which to make that decision and I can assure the member that I will make a decision within that specific period I of time.

Mr. Lewis: Thank you. I have no further questions.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Fort William.

WATER SAMPLING PROBLEMS

Mr. Jessiman: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of the Environment. Would the minister consider having a joint meeting with Lakehead University, his own staff, McMaster University and the Ontario Research Foundation so that we can come up with one honest and immediate solution to the sampling problems in the waters of Lake Superior at Thunder Bay?

Mr. Singer: Does he mean that what we have got now is dishonest?

Hon. W. Newman: Mr. Speaker, different results were obtained by Lakehead University, McMaster University and the Ontario Research Foundation. I believe I did answer part of the question last Friday in the House.

I’ve asked my staff to meet with representatives from the two universities and the Ontario Research Foundation to discuss this matter and how their testing was done. I have also asked that a joint sample be taken as quickly as possible, and the three groups will all monitor and check it together so that we can get this matter sorted out.

Mr. Singer: Will it be honest?

Mr. J. E. Stokes (Thunder Bay): Supplementary: Will the minister, at the same time. do further work on the analysis of the quality of water along the north shore of Lake Superior, in places like Terrace Bay, which could be subject to some water impairment as a result of the actions of the Reserve Mining Co. down on the south shore?

Hon. Mr. Newman: Yes, Mr. Speaker. If I read the member correctly, he wants us to do some sampling at Terrace Bay -- and we’ll be glad to.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Huron-Bruce.

MINERAL RIGHTS TAX ON FARMLAND

Mr. Gaunt: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Natural Resources. Is a mineral rights tax on farmland under consideration by his ministry? And, if so, what is the purpose of such a tax?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, this was one of the recommendations of, I suppose you would call it the John Rhodes committee. It was the committee that was established to look into revisions of the Mining Act. That particular point, along with many others, is being dealt with within the ministry at the present time, and no firm decision has been made with respect to that particular recommendation.

Mr. Speaker: Supplementary.

Mr. Gaunt: Is the minister aware of the full implications of the instituting of such a tax, in view of the fact that this could, under certain circumstances, impose a very real hardship on farmers across the province?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Yes, I am, Mr. Speaker. We’ve had correspondence from, I think, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture. We’ve been in discussion with them and they’ve expressed a point of view which, of course, we’re looking at and examining very carefully.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Sudbury.

FOOD PRICES

Mr. M. C. Germa (Sudbury): Mr. Speaker, a question of the Minister of Agriculture and Food: Now that Beryl Plumptre’s commandos have been muzzled by threat of court action, will the minister consider a comparative food prices shopping programme in order to guide the people of Ontario in and out of certain supermarkets?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: I was not aware that Mrs. Plumptre’s committee has not had full opportunity to do whatever it wants to do.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Rainy River.

COSTS OF COMMISSIONS

Mr. T. P. Reid (Rainy River): Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Chairman of the Management Board of Cabinet. Can the minister indicate what spending restraints there are on these royal commissions the government is so fond of setting up? This particularly includes the Robarts inquiry and the LaMarsh inquiry into violence. What is it going to cost the taxpayers? Is there a budget set for both?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Mr. Speaker, I can’t give a definitive answer, but there are the guidelines of Management Board for expenditures that must be adhered to, and we monitor each and every one of them accordingly.

Mr. Reid: Supplementary, if I may: The government didn’t do that in the commission on secondary education. May I ask, is the minister aware of who Mary Collins Associates are, who are doing work for the Robarts commission? Does he think it appropriate that an outfit whose head office is in Sudbury, and which does not have an office in Toronto, should be involved in doing work for the city of Toronto or for the Robarts commission?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: I am not aware of that particular point, Mr. Speaker, but I can assure the member that that commission, as well as all others, will adhere to the guidelines of Management Board.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Sudbury East.

Mr. Lewis: That is not the Sudbury Collins, is it?

Mr. Ferrier: Don Collins’ wife.

Mr. Martel: That’s right.

Mr. Singer: Only related by marriage.

PITS AND QUARRIES CONTROL ACT

Mr. Martel: A question of the Minister of Natural Resources: In view of the fact that both he and the Premier promised that early in 1974 the Pits and Quarries Control Act would be made applicable to northern Ontario, and in view of the fact that we’re well into 1975, can the minister indicate when he intends to make the Pits and Quarries Control Act applicable? Does he realize we’re now in 1975?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, I swear that the member for Sudbury East must be reading my mail. I can assure him we will be making a decision and making an announcement very shortly.

Mr. Lewis: We are reading the member for Sudbury East’s mail.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: He knows how to get his hands on it.

Mr. Martel: I have a friend over there.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: He has spies again, has he?

Mr. Speaker: The member for Nipissing.

Mr. Lewis: We get everything he receives through Mary Collins Associates.

SOCIAL BENEFITS PAYMENTS

Mr. R. S. Smith: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Community and Social Services.

In light of the statement in the Throne Speech that steps will be taken to compensate those whose social benefits have been discounted by inflation, would the minister indicate to me when the announcement will be made as to that statement and what parts of the family benefits, other than GAINS, will be increased to meet the need that now exists?

Hon. R. Brunelle (Minister of Community and Social Services): I’m sorry, Mr. Speaker. In view of the conversation going on, I missed the first part of the member’s question. Did he say, “in the Throne Speech”?

Mr. R. S. Smith: The Throne Speech indicated -- and I quote -- “My ministers will take appropriate steps to compensate those whose social benefits have been discounted by inflation.” What I am asking is, when is the minister going to take the appropriate steps for other people, aside from the fact that he has done something in the budget for those on GAINS?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Speaker, we are very much aware that inflation is causing problems to those on family benefits and general welfare, and it is hoped steps will be taken.

Mr. Reid: The government is causing inflation.

Mr. Lewis: A supplementary: Did the minister promise or make a commitment to the Mother-Led Union on Friday to show them, in three to four weeks’ time, the change in levels of allowance for those on effective mothers’ allowance and on family benefits, and the increase in earnable income?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Speaker, we had a very good meeting with the Mother-Led Union last Friday morning. They asked me if they could meet again within another month, and I said we would be pleased to do so and at that time we would indicate to them what position we are prepared to take.

Mr. R. S. Smith: A supplementary: In other words, the minister is answering my question by saying that in one month’s time he will be prepared to say what he is going to do?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Speaker, I believe what I said was that I told the Mother-Led Union we would meet with them again in about a month’s time, and at that time we would be in a better position to indicate to them what steps we are presently contemplating.

Mr. Martel: In other words, nothing -- just slough them off.

TRUCK LOAD COVERS

Mr. F. A. Burr (Sandwich-Riverside): Mr. Speaker, a question of the Solicitor General regarding uncovered gravel trucks: Has the Solicitor General had any success in having all gravel trucks use tarpaulins when loaded on the roads and highways of this province?

Hon. Mr. Clement: No, I haven’t had any success on it, Mr. Speaker. I had a hole in my own car window to testify to that.

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): We might finally get some results.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I once was interested in a gravel pit, and if anybody thinks there’s a conflict with my answer here, I’ll talk to him about it afterwards.

I’ll take the member’s question as notice. I remember there was some discussion with the OPP some time ago, involving my predecessor, as to this sort of thing being an answer to what is really a very difficult and dangerous situation. I do not have that information available to me, but will get back to the member. I presume the member is concerned about it, and I agree it is a very dangerous situation with the damned stuff flying all over the place.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Windsor-Walkerville with a supplementary.

Mr. B. Newman (Windsor-Walkerville): Mr. Speaker, a supplementary question of the minister: Would the minister consider following the lead of the State of Michigan, where the requirements are that an open gravel truck like that is not allowed to be loaded higher than one foot from the top of the side of the vehicle?

Hon. Mr. Clement: That would seem to be a very good idea. I am not so sure that isn’t the policy adhered to by most of the gravel carriers in this province. It isn’t only just the gravel trucks that create dangerous situations; it is also the trucks carrying things like scrap metal, which occasionally drop pieces by the side of the road, where people hit them in cars and they do all kinds of damage.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Sandwich-Riverside with a supplementary.

Mr. Burr: is the minister aware that in Michigan also there is a $500 fine for uncovered trucks?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I wasn’t, but I am now.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Rainy River.

ADOPTION OF VIETNAMESE CHILDREN

Mr. Reid: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Community and Social Services. Can the minister indicate if there will be any more Vietnamese orphans or children coming to Ontario for adoption purposes? If so, will it be possible for people outside of the Metro Toronto area to apply to adopt these children?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: The information I have received, Mr. Speaker, indicates there will probably be no further children. I’d like to mention to the member that the children who have arrived -- I believe about close to 60 -- have been placed in Thunder Bay, Sudbury, Kirkland Lake, Napanee, Brantford, Niagara, Hamilton, Oakville and Toronto. They have been scattered in various parts of the province.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Ottawa Centre.

CONDOMINIUM REGULATIONS

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): I have a question of the Provincial Secretary for Justice and Attorney General, Mr. Speaker. Now that the Ontario Supreme Court has ruled it is unreasonable to pass a rule in a condominium to prevent pets, is the minister or the government prepared to move in order to stop similar rules to prevent children in condominiums where that rule is enforced or is contemplated?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, with respect to the Condominium Act, it is administered by my colleague, the Minister of Consumer and Commercial relations (Mr. Handleman), and I suspect he probably will be considering certain matters pertaining to condominiums, involving that one.

Mr. Lewis: That’s quite a social reform.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Huron-Bruce.

RASPBERRY APPEAL CASE

Mr. Gaunt: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Agriculture and Food and since the minister is quite familiar with the case I’ll skip the preamble. Why is the government refusing to give raspberry plants to Mr. Hartman?

Mr. Ruston: We’ve heard that before.

Mr. Singer: They don’t like him.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: I wouldn’t say that.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Give him the raspberry.

Mr. Singer: They don’t like his lawyer either.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: We are simply phasing out the programmes.

Mr. Lewis: The minister is phasing out Mr. Hartman, that is what he is doing.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Thunder Bay.

Mr. Gaunt: A supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: One supplementary, first of all, then.

Mr. Gaunt: Is it sheer coincidence that the ministry just happened to start phasing out the programme when Mr. Hartman instituted court action?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: No, it’s no coincidence at all, Mr. Speaker. I just think that if the federal government wants to implement those programmes in this province as it does in other provinces and carry the load for them itself, then that’s what it should do here. It has refused to do that here but it has in other provinces. We think it should do it here. We’re going to leave things entirely in its hands. Now the member should go and talk to his federal friends.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Thunder Bay. There is just time for another question.

STATIONARY ENGINEERS’ EXAMS

Mr. Stokes: I have a question of the Minister of Labour. Can the minister give any plausible reason why it should be necessary for an employee who wants to write his second-class engineering papers to travel 140 miles to the city of Thunder Bay and then fly all the way down to Metropolitan Toronto, just to pass those second-class stationary engineering exams? Why can’t he delegate somebody in the city of Thunder Bay to conduct those examinations? Is the minister aware that it costs the employee well in excess of $300 just to come down here to take those tests?

Hon. J. P. MacBeth (Minister of Labour): Mr. Speaker, I’m sorry but I’ve already delegated that authority to the Minister of Colleges and Universities (Mr. Auld).

Mr. Martel: Who just doesn’t happen to be here.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: He, not being here, can’t very well answer the question, sir.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Kent.

PURCHASE OF RAILWAY LAND IN ERIEAU

Mr. J. P. Spence (Kent): Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Natural Resources. What progress is being made in regard to purchasing the land owned by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad in the village of Erieau? Is the minister aware that 68 citizens of Erieau have their homes on property owned by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad? The company has raised the rent of the leases from as low as $300 to as high as $900 which is a concern and a hardship on those homeowners.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, I regret to advise the member that I’m not fully up to date on the situation. As he well knows I visited the area about a year ago, I believe, and I indicated at that time that we were interested in purchasing that particular property for park development. I’ll certainly bring myself up to date and report to the member directly.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Wentworth with a final question.

REGISTRATION OF HANDGUNS

Mr. Deans: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Attorney General, if I may. Given that recent reports show a substantial increase in the sale of semi-automatic weapons and handguns, has the minister given any thought to the possibility of requiring that a person who wishes to purchase such a weapon should have to obtain a licence first, before the weapon can be sold?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Under the Registration of Firearms Act, I think it’s called that -- the federal legislation -- which has been in effect for a number of years, all handguns must be registered.

Mr. Deans: Yes, but after the sale.

Hon. Mr. Clement: After the sale is when it is done.

Mr. Deans: Why not before? In other words, why shouldn’t you have to get the permit before you can buy a gun?

Hon. Mr. Clement: This might be something for us to consider. I have had some discussions at the policy field about handguns, in particular about rifles and shotguns. The federal Minister of Justice, in a very informal conversation, indicated some concern to me about this some weeks ago. I might consider writing to the Solicitor General of Canada to see if they would consider this. I believe semi-automatic weapons have to be registered in the same way as handguns, but I’m just relying on my own memory. I think semi-automatics have to be.

Mr. Deans: No, not so.

Mr. Reid: You shouldn’t get the gun until you have the permit.

Mr. Speaker: The oral question period has expired.

Petitions.

Presenting reports.

Motions.

Introduction of bills.

MINISTRY OF GOVERNMENT SERVICES AMENDMENT ACT

Mr. Singer moves first reading of bill intituled, An Act to amend the Ministry of Government Services Act.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

Mr. Singer: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this bill, which is the same bill I introduced a year ago, is to provide a compulsory tendering procedure far more extensive than that now contained in the Ministry of Government Services Act. It reduces the amount for which compulsory tenders are required from $10,000 to $750, and it includes a list of items to include purchase of any commodity or real property or interest therein, and requires that there shall be tenders in all those cases in addition to the repair or renovation of public works.

Mr. Speaker: Orders of the day.

Clerk of the House: The second order, House in committee of the whole.

RETAIL SALES TAX AMENDMENT ACT

House in committee on Bill 30, An Act to amend the Retail Sales Tax Act.

Mr. Chairman: Does any member with to speak on this bill? Which section?

On section 1:

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): Section 1(2), Mr. Chairman, regarding paragraph 15.

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): Mr. Chairman, if I may speak to section 1(1), my colleague was going to speak to section 1(2) and yielded the floor for this purpose.

The explanatory note, Mr. Chairman, states that “The amendment clarifies that a sale does not include the distribution of property to shareholders on the winding-up or dissolution of a corporation.”

My questions are: When did this problem come to light, why is this amendment now required and what is the rationale by which such a distribution is not to be a taxable distribution?

Hon. A. K. Meen (Minister of Revenue): Mr. Chairman, I understand that the problem that was created came about inadvertently in an amendment made in the Act in 1967. I don’t know when it first became a problem in a sense of concern except that the joint taxation committee of the Bar Association and the Institute of Chartered Accountants brought it to our attention recently, and the principle is simply that if there isn’t a change in beneficial interest then there shouldn’t be the attraction of tax. That’s the case with the winding-up and the distribution of proceeds, and so it seems appropriate to revert now to what has been the case in the original Act of 1963, I guess that was, and was inadvertently removed from the Act in some amendments that were made in the year 1967.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Chairman, what has the practice of the ministry been? Have you been collecting the tax or have you not been collecting the tax? Has there been a ruling under which you have said this is not a taxable distribution? Or have you been collecting the tax and how you are not going to collect the tax?

Hon. Mr. Meen: I am advised that we have not been collecting the tax, Mr. Chairman, and I don’t know whether it was done under a formal ruling or interpretation, but certainly I think it is appropriate that it should be remedied at this time by a formal amendment to the Act.

Mr. Renwick: Well, I make the comment for what it is worth, Mr. Chairman, that there is no reason why a transfer of title or possession from a corporation to its shareholders on the dissolution or winding-up should not be a taxable transfer for the purposes of the Retail Sales Tax Act. You can’t have it both ways. Either the corporation is a separate entity from its shareholders or it is not a separate entity. At a certain point in time it doesn’t cease to be, simply because it’s being wound up.

I would like to have, either now or in writing from the minister at some point, exactly what the practice of the ministry has been from time to time when this so-called inadvertence took place back in --

Hon. Mr. Meen: In 1967.

Mr. Renwick: -- 1967, and this is now 1975. What has happened in the intervening years? What has been the practice of the ministry in such cases? Has the tax been collected? Has it not been collected? I understand the minister to say it hasn’t been, but I would like to have a very clear explanation of any situation under which a corporation or its shareholders can escape the tax which would otherwise, by the terms of the Act, be payable. May I have an undertaking that I will hear from the minister about this?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Yes, Mr. Chairman, I have no objection to getting that. I would be interested myself in determining just what the detail of the background of this situation is. I think I can get that for the hon. member.

Mr. Chairman: Shall subsection 1 carry? Carried. On subsection 2, the hon. member for Lakeshore.

Mr. Lawlor: During the second reading I did interrogate the minister -- he didn’t get an opportunity at that time to reply -- with respect to the inclusion of a chattel that is a fixture within the definition. I was concerned, first of all, about the ambiguities basically of the concept of fixture.

What did the minister envisage? Is he going to have within his schedule or within his legislation a list of things deemed to be fixtures? In other words, just how did he propose to handle this matter? I trust he knows the complications for the legal profession in making transfers of property these days. Very often, broadloom and other items have to be taken into account with respect to sales tax on the transfer. I would take it that a furnace rooted to the basement would be a fixture, certainly not part of the real estate in the true sense. There has always been some ambiguity about TV antennas, aerials and that sort of thing.

Is the legal profession going to be forced to make an estimate of the cost or the validity, with the depreciation involved of these various items which are affixed to realty, then on the vendor’s side to extract sufficient sums of money at your five per cent figure, as it presently will stand, in order to compensate the government in this?

I mean, there are severe penalties for failure to do so. The headaches involved are simply atrocious. I suspect that you will get another inundation. Of course, you have become inured to that. You’ve grown thick skin over the ages and in the last few months over the ramifications and particularly vicious effects some of your tax legislation has had, not on the basis of its validity but simply from its administrative standpoint, as to making it effective in operation. Well, what has the minister to say about these things?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Chairman, we’re not really trying to define fixture here any more than it was ever defined. I agree with the member for Lakeshore that the legal profession constantly confronts the problem of determining when something is a fixture or is not a fixture. What we’re talking about here, though, is perhaps best explained by using an illustration of, say, a rental water heater. This would mean that where a separate charge is made by a lessor to a lessee for rental of a water heater, the lessee is the consumer and he pays the tax on the rental price that is charged. Let me read a further part of some explanatory material that I have here, Mr. Chairman:

“As in all cases of rentals of tangible personal property, the lessor will acquire the ultimate installed fixture exempt of tax for resale and he charges the lessee tax calculated on his rental charge for the installed fixture. On the other hand, though, where a lessor rents land together with a fixture for one price -- that is, a total price for the whole thing -- he, the lessor, then is the consumer of the fixture and he must pay the tax on his acquisition thereof and no tax applies to his rental price to his customer.”

That’s what we’re trying to get at here; we’re not trying to define fixture. As I mentioned to the hon. member for Lakeshore following the debate on second reading, I did not have a chance to make that explanation to him during my reply.

Mr. Chairman: Does subsection 2 of section 1 carry? Carried. Any more on section 1?

Section 1 agreed to.

On section 2:

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member for Lakeshore.

Mr. Lawlor moves that section 2 of Bill 30 be amended by deleting the words, “and ending Dec. 31, 1975.”

Mr. Lawlor: Mr. Chairman, as with other pieces of legislation that have been before us, particularly through the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough), the truncating of the legislation at a particular date is simply taken by this party to be a masquerade or a piece of charade performed for purely electoral purposes in order to win favour with the electorate coming into an election very shortly and having no efficacy with respect to the overall economic picture at all, and not designed fundamentally to improve that situation in a deep way. If this were so, then it would have some indefiniteness with respect to it.

It is simply a pretentious handout, a piece of hypocrisy, as far as we are concerned. We have said so. We have said from the beginning that the sales tax, being a regressive tax, was questionable as a whole. We have always advocated nothing more than a five per cent sales tax but the Conservatives took it immediately after the last election to seven per cent. Now, as a pawn in their peculiar chess game, which is not being played with any Bobby Fischers, the position is that they revert to what they think is an exquisite piece of legerdemain.

The Treasurer thinks he’s Houdini and can get out of his socks after wearing them for so long. It’s quite impossible without putting the feet in very warm water indeed, and that’s where you stand -- up to your neck in the warm water. The trouble is that the water gets to boil a bit, doesn’t it? It becomes most uncomfortable. We say, if you are going to do this at all, extend it.

Mr. J. A. Taylor (Prince Edward-Lennox): When he gets into hot water he takes a bath.

Mr. Lawlor: Make it indefinite. Let it stay at five per cent. Do not have your peculiar cutting-off date of Dec. 31 this year.

If you are re-elected, of course, that’s what you will do. Back up will go the tax to seven per cent. We will make this sufficiently known to the electorate as to the chicanery involved in the position and seek to penetrate.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Be honest about it.

Mr. Lawlor: But to show in an overt form our opposition to the way in which it is presently regarded and your failure to make it into an indefinite reduction in the tax, we --

Mr. J. A. Taylor: The opposition will be exposed.

Mr. Lawlor: -- propose to vote against it and to call a vote in this particular regard.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Chairman, I must confess I quite expected the hon. member to make that amendment when we got to this section but I simply repeat what I said on second reading of this bill. I think that this provision demonstrates some fiscal integrity on this side of the House.

When you are talking about a couple of points of retail sales tax for a total fiscal year, you are talking about money in terms in excess of $400 million. This province cannot afford that kind of loss of revenue on a long-term or constant basis. We believe that it can afford it on the short-term of nine months less a few days.

Mr. W. Ferrier (Cochrane South): Yes, the election period.

Mr. Lawlor: I fully acknowledge the minister believes that.

Hon. Mr. Meen: The economy can, therefore, receive this shot in the arm that the reduction in tax will give. We are showing some intellectual integrity in telling the people of Ontario --

Mr. Ferrier: It must be the only kind you have got.

Hon. Mr. Meen: -- that when we have done this, at the end of the year we will have to go back up to the seven per cent. There is nothing the matter with seven per cent.

Mr. Lawlor: It just doesn’t wash.

Hon. Mr. Meen: The revenue derived from those two extra points of retail sales tax will be an imperative part of the revenues of this province in order to meet our other obligations, as spelled out in the budget and as are already part of the province’s platform under GAINS and Ontario tax credits and so on.

I think it is far more intellectual to tell the people of this province that we will do this for a short period of time but that later on it will go back up to seven per cent, than to drop it to five per cent and leave it there on an indefinite basis.

Mr. Ferrier: Will it stay at seven per cent or go to eight per cent or nine per cent?

Hon. Mr. Meen: I would be the first to agree, if we could afford to go down to five per cent and leave it there, that I would love to see it stay at five per cent. I would be the happiest Minister of Revenue the members could ever imagine, if I could say, “Look, it is going to stay at five per cent.” But I also have the responsibility of raising the funds that are required for the operation of this province. So I think we have to be pre pared to stand in our place and say, “All right, we can tolerate five per cent, a loss of two points of retail sales tax revenues for a nine-month period, but after that time it goes back up again.”

Mr. Chairman: The member for Lakeshore.

Mr. Lawlor: I will be very short. I would like to know, and probably the minister won’t tell me, as to whether he was in upon this policy decision? I can well envisage them sitting around the Treasurer’s desk chortling with glee and rubbing their hands as to what a clever manoeuvre this whole thing is. Then somebody points out the revenue loss. And they say: “Well, in any event, we can’t very well, even if it is in our hearts to do so, increase it after the election, even if we are the government. If we were not the government, then of course we don’t care. If we are, at least we are giving some handouts, some pandering at the present time. But we have to be honest against our intellectual pretention with the electorate and let them know a cutoff date. If we don’t do that now and then do it later, we will lose face forever. We will suffer a Pearl Harbour. Even if we should be the government at that particular time, that kind of chicanery will never be forgiven.”

So you had to go that extra few inches in order to establish your time limitation. That’s the very least you could do. Don’t give yourself any flowers for that. To not to do that would be such a dismal piece of failure, as to bypass the electorate.

Hon. Mr. Meen: The member is admitting it is a fiscal responsibility. He knows it has to go back up and we have to prepare to face it now. That’s what we are doing.

Mr. Lawlor: After Watergate, you can’t pull that kind of trick, much as you would like to. The fact of the matter is that you have to level with the populace up to a point. But you are not levelling with the populace when you pull that particular rabbit out of the hat and turn toadstools into rhododendrons.

Hon. Mr. Meen: There’s nothing more straightforward than telling later on what is going to be.

Mr. Lawlor: It is a piece of pretence that is so blatant it will get you absolutely nowhere.

Hon. Mr. Meen: When you are not in power and you don’t expect to be in power you can have all the fiscal irresponsibility you like.

Mr. Lawlor: What you have done is sent $225 million down the drain without getting yourselves re-elected in the process. Won’t that break your hearts, eh?

Mr. Chairman: The member for Waterloo North.

Mr. E. R. Good (Waterloo North): Mr. Chairman, I would like the minister to answer a couple of questions. If you want us and the people of Ontario to believe this is not an election gimmick -- to lower the tax now and raise it after an election -- how can you lower it and then raise it at a predetermined date, all in one piece of legislation? Why don’t you lower it now and then, as the circumstances warrant, have a public debate in this forum later on as to the validity of raising it again but you have just given yourself away?

You have lost all credibility by saying, “We are going to lower it now and at the end of the year, conditions will be such that the spending power generated by this reduction will no longer be required so the tax will be back up.” People just aren’t buying that argument and we don’t buy it.

If you were really sincere about putting additional spending power in the hands of the people by lowering the tax these two points, you would say, “We will now lower it and when conditions warrant, we will have another debate and we will look at the conditions prevailing at that particular time and we will see if and when it is necessary to put the tax back up again.” Tell me why you are not taking that approach to it?

Hon. Mr. Meen: I think we can argue this until, in a figurative sense the cows come home because it’s the same argument. You can take the one approach or you can take the other. In our case we are saying it’s $250 million approximately -- if I can pull a figure out of the air -- for the lost revenue for nine months for two points of retail sales tax.

That kind of lost revenue we can tolerate for the balance of this year but the economy of this province cannot tolerate that kind of lost revenue on an annual basis. We are telling the people of this province that for this period of time here’s their incentive. It will put that much more money into the pockets of the taxpayers of Ontario and hopefully they will go out and spend it.

Mr. Good: You are just guessing.

Hon. Mr. Meen: As the Treasurer described it, he hoped the $2 saving on a $100 purchase would burn a hole in the purchaser’s pocket and he would go out and recycle that $2 along with the other money he has just spent We are telling the people now; we are not leaving it to a debate in the fall or a debate next winter as to whether it should go back up again and if so by how much.

Mr. Good: That’s the cynical part of it.

Hon. Mr. Meen: We don’t believe there is anything the matter with seven per cent as a total retail sales tax figure in a normal economic year in Ontario but the Treasurer has recognized that certain incentives and certain steps have to be taken in his budget -- through the mechanism of his budget -- to get the economy moving at a faster pace in Ontario.

If you want to make these arguments, I would suggest you can make them to the Treasurer in the budget debate. I am saying to you that this is, I believe, the most completely responsible position a government could take. It is far more responsible than simply taking the tax down to five per cent, leaving it there for X number of months and saying, “Now, maybe next year we may have to go back up again.”

We are saying we know where the money comes from. We happen to be the ones who are cloaked with the responsibility of running this province. With our various programmes, we have to know where the money is coming from as well as where it’s going and we can’t spend it before we have got it.

In my case, my responsibility is to recover the moneys under the Retail Sales Tax Act. I can understand why the Treasurer was quite prepared to reduce it. I can also understand why he didn’t feel it should be reduced on an ongoing basis and as a constant kind of thing rather than this temporary arrangement as, indeed, we are doing with respect to production machinery, albeit that’s for a somewhat longer period of time.

Mr. Good: Mr. Chairman, the minister should not be allowed to raise taxes automatically at the end of the year without a public debate. That’s what you are arranging right now.

Hon. Mr. Meen: We are having a public debate right now.

Mr. Good: That’s what you are arranging in the passage of this bill -- to put the sales tax up at the end of the year without any public debate or forum.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Sudbury.

Mr. M. C. Germa (Sudbury): Mr. Chairman, I am trying desperately not to be cynical when people phone me up; they see the cynicism in this bill which is going to be terminated at the end of the year. It’s difficult for me not to take the same approach. I am trying to go along with your explanation.

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): He is not a cynical person. He is trying to believe in you.

Mr. Germa: I will show you what I have been doing. I am trying to go along with your explanation that the economy needed a short, quick shot in the arm. And this is how you proposed to pump probably $300 million back into the economy.

Mr. Good: It’s $227 million.

Mr. Germa: It’s $227 million. All right, now supposing it is --

Mr. Good: He has misled us again. He said $250 million.

Hon. Mr. Meen: I said I estimated. I was pulling a figure out of the air -- and that was my problem.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Sudbury has the floor.

Mr. Germa: Supposing your programme is successful and it does encourage --

Hon. Mr. Meen: I don’t have my copy here.

Mr. Germa: I wish the minister would listen; I’m asking him for an answer to my proposition. Supposing your programme is successful and it is going to encourage people to go out and make major purchases prior to the end of the year. There could be a rush on appliances, certainly. There might be a short, quick pickup in business. People who are going to plan major purchases are going to make damned sure they get them on the books before Dec. 31.

Now, what I’m worrying about is that the government that takes over after you people have disappeared is going to be facing a slump, come Jan. 1, when everybody has made their major purchases that they had planned over the past six months. You’re going to have a downturn in the economy. You’re going back to the old boom and bust syndrome again.

I think this jerking and the severe changes in policy are not serving the interests of the people in Ontario to their best needs. You have to chart a steady course so people will know where they’re going. And here you are jerking on the levers, back and forth, so that we don’t know where we’re going; and our economy is going to react in the same manner.

Can you not see that there’s going to be a severe downturn once the tax is reimposed on major appliances and things like that? Have you thought that out? I know you people don’t think any further ahead than the next election, but can you not see that is going to result in a reduction in jobs and a reduction in trade and commerce come the first of the year, after people have gone out and done their major appliance and automobile buying in order to take advantage of the termination date of the tax?

Mr. Lawlor: They figure they’ll be elected by that time and don’t have to worry that much.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Chairman, I don’t know how much more the Minister of Revenue can answer on a question that’s really a mailer of economics in the area of responsibility of the Treasurer. But, in short, what the Treasurer has been saying and what we’re all saying is that we believe that this kind of measure will be the incentive to get the economy rolling again.

January is rather traditionally a slow month anyway. You have the Christmas period of Christmas buying, and we think that it should be this year, with a reduction in tax through the nine-month period of 1975, we should see a fairly substantial upturn in commodity sales. And it might be that January would show a momentary drop. But it’s the Treasurer and his economists belief that the economy will then have been turned around, and will be growing again anyway, and that we can then tolerate the increase in the retail sales tax back to seven per cent.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member for Wentworth.

Mr. Deans: Thank you. I’m not like my colleague, the hon. member for Sudbury; he’s trusting, he really is.

Hon. Mr. Meen: And you’re not? Don’t you trust me?

Mr. Deans: He trusts you and he thinks that the things that you do are done for the highest possible purposes. I don’t think so. I have some different views of it from that. I really do think that somewhere in the back rooms of the Conservative Party somebody dredged up a pre-election programme and this is part of it?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Everything we do you’re going to try and put in the context of an election.

Mr. Deans: I know. It’s my natural instincts.

Mr. Ferrier: That’s the reason why the government does it.

Mr. Deans: I realize it. It is my natural doubting tendencies. I can’t help it. I suppose it’s maybe from listening to seven different budgets and hearing all of the diverse reasons why you have to do the things you do, and then finding afterwards that they don’t work. As you look at all the things you’ve done over seven years, the machinery tax rebate through to your speculation tax, through to your energy tax, and you give us all these wonderful reasons and economic theories as to how they’re going to do the job. And then they all turn out to be a lot of nonsense. So, I sort of come to the conclusion that much of what you say you really don’t mean. You’re only saying it because you have to.

Hon. Mr. Meen: You give me the same impression.

Mr. Deans: I have got to tell you it was very cleverly devised, it really was. The way you brought this bill in, this is really a clever political move. You bestow certain benefits while at the same time saying, “You know, it’s not political because if it had been political we wouldn’t have set a termination date. Therefore, you can all trust us. This is not a political move, not an attempt to buy your votes. This is just a plain, ordinary economic stimulus.”

Then the Treasurer, standing before a municipal organization last week, said, “We’ll he bringing in the budget probably in early January” -- there’s the key.

Mr. J. E. Stokes (Thunder Bay): I doubt that.

Mr. Deans: Then we wonder. Let’s assume for a moment that by some happenstance you win the election. I don’t think you will but let us assume you do just for the sake of the argument. The Treasurer brings in his early January budget. What you are really saying is, “In order to try to gain your support politically we’ll give you a reduction in tax. In order to try to make it look not political we’ll tell you that it is going to end in nine months.”

What you are not telling them is how much more you are going to soak them for it in your early January budget. That’s the key to it. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to tell that until it happens but I am predicting that in early January you are going to soak them for everything you can get, if you win.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Deans: You are going to take advantage of every single tax that is available and you are going to put it right to them in early January with your new budget. You are going to say: “That shot in the arm didn’t work, unfortunately. It got us re-elected but it didn’t work the way we had hoped and we can’t go along with this deficit mounting the way it is. Therefore, we are going to have to raise taxes. We don’t like to do it. Mark you -- we would prefer not to -- but fiscal responsibility requires it. In January we’ll be raising the taxes and we will be raising this back to seven per cent as we said we would. We’ll he changing the tax structure at the income tax level to recover a little more, and we’ll be raising the tax on certain liquors and cigarettes and gasoline to get a little more.” You might even say in the gasoline situation, “It’s to try to save energy, to discourage people from purchasing.”

I could write your January budget speech because I know how you think now after 7½ years. I have listened to them all and I can see it all developing. By the end of December the poor souls who will have saved $80 or $85 will be soaked for $100, maybe $150, over the next --

Mr. J. A. Taylor: You are cynical!

Mr. Deans: Cynical? Not at all; I am simply telling you the truth.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: I know that mind of yours.

Mr. Deans: That is the reason why I have some doubts about it. I realize you wouldn’t let me bet; I offered to the other day and couldn’t get away with it. I tell you, as I look ahead, I think, somehow or other; that is the way it is going to be.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: You can’t see past your nose.

Mr. Deans: I think that is the way it is going to be. I can see it now. In early January -- Jan. 15 at the latest -- in comes the Treasurer with his budget and he will say the federal government hasn’t done what it should have done. It hasn’t made enough money available, it hasn’t cut this tax.

He will say: “We are in trouble in Ontario. As you know, we had to put the sales tax back to seven per cent, as we said we would.” Beyond that point he will say, “We are in more debt than ever before and therefore, reluctantly, we are going to have to ask for more.” A little like Oliver Twist, you will be in asking for more. The only difference between him and you is that he had to ask; you take it without asking. That is the difference.

What is going to happen is that every other tax -- not every other tax but a number of other taxes -- will be raised in order to make up for the deficit you are going to incur as a result of the reduction from seven to five per cent. I think it is dishonest, I really do, but nevertheless you are going to do it.

I hope the people out there benefit from it. I hope they have the sense to save the extra two per cent because they are going to need it to pay next year’s. If they spend it this year when you raise it next year they are going to have to take it out of their already hard-pressed pockets. I hope enough of them have enough sense to hang on to some of it so they can pay it back when you raise the other taxes on the things they have to have -- because you are going to raise them. As sure as I stand here you’re going to raise them, and when you raise them you’ll conjure up equally good economic arguments. You’ll just get a different economist, because you can’t get two to agree anyway. So you’ll get a different economist and hell tell you that that’s the proper economic approach to take and you’ll do it.

I find it pretty hard, Mr. Minister; I’ve got to tell you the truth. I think there are other ways. I think we all understand that. We understand and you understand that we would have done it differently, but that’s okay.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: You sure would have.

Mr. Deans: But I don’t think, on balance, that you are telling the whole story. When you bring in a budget I think you’ve got an obligation to make that budget, to all intents and purposes, for a fiscal year, but I think it’s reasonable during the course of the year, if there is some unforeseen economic problem, to bring in a supplementary problem. I think that’s entirely proper, but at this point you’re talking now about nine-month fiscal years. That’s what you are talking about. You’re talking about a budget in January. You re talking about a budget in January. I read the statement of the Treasurer.

Hon. Mr. Meen: It doesn’t change the fiscal year.

Mr. Deans: Which means that this budget is for only nine months and the next budget will contain all of the changes that have to be made in order to put an additional stimulus into the coffers of the Treasury at the expense of the people of the province, because you hope, by that point, to have a mandate that will carry you four more years.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: You are predicting an upturn.

Mr. Deans: I’m predicting you’ll go out and we’ll be --

Mr. J. A. Taylor: An economic upturn.

Mr. Deans: -- faced with the problems of trying to resolve the economic imbalance that you’ve created by this rather silly fiscal measure.

Mr. M. B. Dymond (Ontario): Oh, the member for Wentworth is dreaming.

Mr. Chairman: Does any other hon. member wish to speak on section 2, subsection 3(a)? We have an amendment here. Would it he agreeable that we stack this or are there some other amendments coming up? Agreed?

Mr. Lawlor: No, call a vote on it.

Mr. Chairman: Does any other member wish to speak on any part of section 2? Section 3?

Mr. Deans: We are calling a vote on section 2.

Mr. Chairman: Oh, I asked if it was agreed to stack it and I thought I heard the members agree.

Mr. Deans: My colleague said no.

Mr. Lawlor: I said no.

Mr. Chairman: Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you.

Mr. Deans: My colleague is eager to vote now.

Mr. Chairman: All those in favour of Mr. Lawlor’s amendment to section 2, subsection 3(a) will please say “aye.”

All those opposed will please say “nay.”

In my opinion the “nays” have it.

Call in the members.

The committee divided on Mr. Lawlor’s amendment to subsection 3(a) of section 2 of Bill 30, which was negatived on the following vote:

Clerk of the House: Mr. Chairman, the “ayes” are 27, the “nays” are 44.

Mr. Chairman: I declare the amendment lost and section 2(3a) of the bill carried.

Does any other member wish to speak on any other part of section 2 of the bill?

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Chairman, I have one brief comment on section 2(3). I agree with the proposed new subsection 8, which is the purpose of subsection 3 of the bill. I noticed, in reviewing the bill, that it is clear now that it is mandatory that the refund be made, whereas under the former bill it was permissive. I take it to mean that the proposed change to the word “shall” from the word “may,” is that money paid, whether it’s paid under a mistake of fact or under a mistake of law will be repaid to the taxpayer, and that no longer will that device of making that subtle distinction of whether it was paid under a mistake of fact or a mistake of law be available to the Treasurer or to the minister and that, as a mandatory matter, if a refund is required to be made, he must and will be required by this change to make that refund.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Chairman, the words are that where the tax was not payable as tax -- and I take that to mean whether it was paid under a mistake of law or under a mistake of fact -- if the tax was not payable then, in fact, it must be refunded within the two years.

Mr. Renwick: I’m not sure we are talking about the same thing. The Act as it presently reads prior to the section that we’re discussing states that:

“Where a person has paid an amount under this Act as tax that is not payable as tax under this Act, such amount may be refunded upon receipt by the minister of satisfactory evidence that the amount was wrongfully paid.”

Now, in the proposed amendment it states that:

“Where a person has paid an amount under this Act as tax that is not payable as tax under this Act, such amount shall be refunded.”

I take it that if, in fact, it has been paid, either under a mistake of law or under a mistake of fact, that the money will be refunded in both such instances.

Hon. Mr. Meets: Mr. Chairman, that’s my understanding and my intention.

Mr. Chairman: Shall subsection 3 carry?

Subsection 3 agreed to.

Section 2 agreed to.

Mr. Chairman: Any other comments on any other section? If so, which section?

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Chairman, a minor point on section 3.

On section 3:

Mr. Renwick: I agree with the proposals in section 3 with respect to the single licence being required -- that is, in subsection 2, rather than to require an individual licence for each premise on which the business is carried on. But I notice that instead of being required to post either the original licence or a photocopy of it in a conspicuous place, that all that there now has to be at each premises at which the business or trade is carried on is a copy of the original licence, and that a customer can only see that document by asking for it.

I don’t know whether it’s important or not important, but certainly it traditionally has been that the retail sales tax licence must be posted up in a conspicuous place in the establishment where the trade is carried on. As I take it, it’s not going to be necessary because of the provision of the very last item, that’s item 6, which is part of the amendment proposed by subsection 2.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Chairman, it has to be available. I would presume that if there were any number of requests to examine it, the copy would then be placed in a sufficiently conspicuous or available spot so that anyone who was interested could examine it. I don’t believe that is any particular problem. What we are really getting at here is, as the member for Riverdale has indicated, is a single permit for any particular vendor, rather than requiring him to have one for every one of his outlets. Thereupon we do require a section for copies of the permits to be available for inspection at each one of the retail outlets.

Mr. Stokes: I’d like to ask a question, and I’m asking it out of ignorance, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member for Thunder Bay.

Mr. Stokes: Is this the section that deals with the issuance of exemption permits that will allow Indian reserves to be exempt for people living on Indian reserves?

Hon. Mr. Meen: No, Mr. Chairman, this is under the retail sales tax sections for retail merchants.

Mr. Stokes: Where in the Act would I be able to discuss with the minister the availability of exemption cards for those who are exempt from the retail sales tax itself?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Those provisions are not in this particular bill, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman: Is there any other discussion in any other section prior to section 5? I assume section 3 is carried?

Section 3 agreed to.

On section 4:

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member for Riverdale.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Chairman, in order that we can conduct this debate on this major portion of the bill, I would like to move that clause 4 of Bill 30 be amended by deleting from subsection 3, paragraph 49 and renumbering paragraph 49(a) to be paragraph 49, and I so move.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Chairman, could I have some explanation from the hon. member for Riverdale? Are we now dealing with section 4, subsection 3 of the bill?

Mr. Renwick: Yes.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Have we then finished with subsections 1 and 2?

Mr. Renwick: We have no comments on those two subsections.

Mr. Chairman: Is the hon. member for Welland South dealing with section 4, subsections 1 and 2?

Mr. R. Haggerty (Welland South): Yes, Mr. Chairman, I was dealing with section 4 of the proposed bill. I wanted to add a new clause to it. It would be that subsection three of section 4 be amended to include a new subsection following the preamble “but no exemption may be claimed under this paragraph for any machinery or equipment;” and that subsection (e) read “(f) which is imported into Canada if such machinery or equipment for the same purpose can be manufactured in Canada.”

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Chairman, I wonder if I could comment.

Mr. Chairman: Yes.

Mr. Renwick: As I understand it, in response to the minister on subsection 1 of section 4 and subsection 2 of section 4 we have no comment. We can take them as passed?

Mr. Lawlor: Well, I have just one little comment on subsection 2. The alteration in subsection 2 involves just a new phrase called “product-holding fixtures.” I would like a little explanation of why that has been inserted and what it means.

Hon. Mr. Meen: It refers to jigs, Mr. Chairman, devices for holding articles while in the course of manufacture.

Mr. Lawlor: You’ve got jigs in there already.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Well, product-holding is another aspect of that kind of thing.

Mr. Lawlor: I don’t know what he is talking about anyway.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Chairman, I may say that what I have done in the proposed amendment is simply to move that clause 4 of the bill be amended by deleting from subsection 3, paragraph 49 which, Mr. Chairman, you will recognize is the substantial part of the section, leaving, however, paragraph 49(a) but renumbering it as 49.

Mr. Chairman: Right.

An hon. member: Carried?

Mr. Deans: No, I wanted to speak to my colleague’s amendment. I don’t think he’s quite sure what the motion is all about.

Mr. Renwick: It’s very complex.

Mr. Lawlor: Why doesn’t the minister just accept it?

Mr. Deans: I think you should because really it is a terrible subsection.

Mr. Chairman: I think that the Chair would deal with Mr. Renwick’s amendment first. Then after that amendment is considered we would deal with the amendment moved by Mr. Haggerty. If the hon. member for Wentworth would like to comment on the amendment, he can.

Mr. Deans: I would like to comment on my colleague’s amendment which makes, in our opinion, very good sense. The intent of this portion of the legislation, as I understand it, is to do four things. It’s intended to help stimulate the economy. It’s intended to stimulate output or productivity. It’s intended to stimulate investment and it’s intended to stimulate job opportunities. Those are the four areas in which this particular section and this action of the government are intended to have some impact.

I want to talk about those four things, because I want to suggest to you, Mr. Chairman, that this particular amendment is likely to have the opposite effect in terms of the Ontario economy in all four of the areas it was intended to assist.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: The amendment?

Mr. Deans: This change that the government is proposing.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: Not the member for Riverdale’s amendment?

Mr. Deans: That goes without saying. I would assume that had you been following the debate, you would have understood that.

I think the question you have got to ask about the whole matter of the stimulation of the economy and the intended stimulation for investment purposes is, first of all, do you understand that the majority of companies don’t make these kinds of decisions overnight? The majority of companies don’t decide on a Friday to make major changes in their production machinery purchases for the next week, or two or three weeks later. On balance, they have long-range programmes for the replacement of production machinery. This kind of change isn’t likely to have much impact if in fact they haven’t already made up their minds to purchase production machinery in this particular period of time.

With regard to the stimulation of productivity or output, I think anyone who looks at the economy of Ontario realizes that with few exceptions, industry is now working below capacity, it is not producing anything near the optimal capacity of the machinery that is already in place, and people are being laid off right across this province.

Regardless of whether one speaks of the auto industry, the appliance industry or any other industry, in almost every instance the machinery already in place and the manpower available have the capacity to produce more, given the opportunity. Therefore, this move is not likely to be able to stimulate output or productivity unless -- and we come to the next point.

This particular amendment, put forward by the minister on behalf of the Treasurer, is intended to stimulate jobs. The question you have got to ask yourself is, where are these jobs going to be stimulated? What is the effect of the purchase of new production machinery on the Ontario scene? You can’t begin to answer those questions until you understand how much production machinery there is manufactured in Ontario, because it will only be at the production machinery manufacturing level that there will be any additional incentive to produce new jobs.

Production machinery, in this day and age, by its very nature tends to eliminate jobs in the factory that it’s going to go into, rather than create new jobs. Production machinery tends to be automated and therefore tends to cut down on the numbers of job opportunities available at the manufacturing level where that machinery is going to be used.

It might be argued by the government that this move will stimulate employment opportunities, but those employment opportunities will be stimulated in the areas or locations where the machinery itself is being produced, rather in the locations where the machinery is to be used. Therefore, it will be counter-productive in terms of the creation of employment opportunities in the Province of Ontario.

The other matter is the stimulation of investment, that this may stimulate companies to invest. But then you have to ask again, where will this investment take place? Is there a particular advantage to stimulating investment by Ontario corporations which will result in an improved economic condition in some other part of the world but which will have a detrimental effect on the job opportunities, both short-term and long-term, in the Province of Ontario?

I think as you look at the four points put forward by the government as being the valid reasons why it wants this particular measure to be carried, you have to question whether those points are going to be beneficial to the Ontario population or whether they are going to be detrimental.

I am going to tell you to begin with that it is detrimental to the economy of Ontario if the economic stimulation takes place other than in Canada, particularly outside the Province of Ontario, in other countries.

It is detrimental in terms of productivity increases if the purchase of production machinery means further automation and a further loss of jobs in the province. There is no point, by a reduction or elimination of a tax, in our encouraging people to buy machinery even if it were possible to do that, if the end result is going to be the purchase of machinery which is more automated in its nature and which will eliminate the jobs of the people who work in the Province in Ontario and therefore will be detrimental to our overall economy.

There is no purpose at all in a company being able to produce more as the result of automation if it means more Canadians out of work. To go along with that, as I said when I began, you have to understand that there are very few companies in Ontario currently working at peak production. The stimulation of production could well have been done by a more vigorous move on the part of this government to assist companies operating here to sell the products they are capable of producing outside this country in the international markets.

If you were going to zero in in some way in trying to up production capacity, if you were going to try to take advantage of the productive capacity both of manpower and of machinery already in place in the Province of Ontario, a sensible solution would have been to have had some kind of exporting corporation established which would have gone out into the markets of the world and tried to sell Ontario and its products.

But what you have done is counter-productive There is no point in turning around and saying you are going to give a remission of tax for the purchase of highly automated machinery for the purpose of creating additional production if the available productive capacities are not being used. This, is where I think you are headed, in the wrong direction.

I think, as I have said, you have also to lock at the whole investment picture. Given the nature of Ontario companies’ production capabilities; given the markets they currently have before them; given the unemployment that is taking place in Ontario and across this country; given the equally important, perhaps more obvious, unemployment in other parts of the world with a reduction in their purchasing capacity, what companies in their right minds are going to alter their production procedures and go out now and automate their companies?

Who is going to be encouraged by a reduction or an elimination of the sales tax to undertake an automation programme or a replenishing or refurbishing programme in his plant if he hadn’t already decided the machinery was obsolete and he hadn’t already made the decision to go ahead in any event? Who do you know who is going to do that? How many companies, just because you have eliminated the tax, are going to go out and do that?

I say to you that the whole direction you are moving in in this particular area tends to defeat all of the very things you have set out as being the reasons for doing it.

Hon. Mr. Meen: They might very well do it a lot sooner.

Mr. Deans: If they do it a lot sooner, you have to ask yourself the question -- I did and I think it is fair -- if you are right and they do it a lot sooner and they automate more quickly, we will create more unemployment in Canada.

Hon. Mr. Meen: If your basic premise is loss of jobs that is not what we are talking about.

Mr. Deans: I’m sorry.

Hon. Mr. Meen: We are talking about creating more jobs.

Mr. Deans: Let me look at that then. If, as you say, they will move more quickly toward the purchase of new production machinery it will, because the production machinery is --

Hon. Mr. Meen: That presupposes that you are retiring the old.

Mr. Deans: No one presupposes you are retiring the old --

Hon. Mr. Meen: They may very well be going into other product lines.

Mr. Deans: Let me try it with you in this way: First of all, surely you would agree with me that we are not now producing at our productive capacity in most industries?

Hon. Mr. Meen: In some areas.

Mr. Deans: In most industry, is that fair?

Hon. Mr. Meen: I couldn’t say. I would say in some areas they are producing at less than capacity.

Mr. Deans: Would you say in the automobile industry we were producing at our productive capacity?

Hon. Mr. Meen: No, I certainly would not.

Mr. Deans: No. Would you say in the appliance industry that we were producing at our productive capacity?

Hon. Mr. Meen: I would say they, too, are running below, so in those areas they would probably upgrade it.

Mr. Deans: Would you say in the furniture industry that we are producing at our productive capacity?

Hon. Mr. Meen: I have no idea.

Mr. Deans: No. The truth is no. In which industry would you say we were producing at our productive capacity?

Hon. Mr. Meen: You go ahead. You make a speech.

Mr. Deans: That’s right. Well then the major employers, both the direct employers and their subsidiaries and all of the auxiliary employers that are attached to them, are not producing at their productive capacity.

Hon. Mr. Meen: But they may very well be able to get into other product lines.

Mr. Deans: Let me go on. In major steel they are not producing at their productive capacity now in any of the steel mills in Ontario. They are currently planning for expansion, but that planning has been on the books for some considerable period of time and all of the plans take, as they say, five to eight years in order for the actual turnover to take place. We can’t benefit from that here in Ontario.

Now if you are telling me that they may then speed up the purchase of this automated machinery in order to produce more, what are they producing more for when the productive capacity of the manufacturing sector is not now being used to its maximum? Why would they go and buy this new machinery to produce more, if they are capable of producing more now and they have no markets for it?

Hon. Mr. Meen: That’s in those particular product lines.

Mr. Deans: I am talking about the majority of product lines in the major employment areas of the Province of Ontario; the major employment areas. So don’t sit and tell me this is somehow or other going to be a good move. It has got to be detrimental and you know it. You can’t argue on the one hand that --

Hon. Mr. Meen: No, no.

Mr. Deans: -- they are going to speed up the changeover to more automated machinery, while agreeing on the other hand that what is already in place is capable of producing at least 20 per cent more than it does now, or in some cases 50 per cent more, and it isn’t being used to the total capacity that it is capable of being used to. There is no rationalization of those two positions.

But let’s assume then that you are right. Let’s assume they decide for some reason that they are then going to move to this automated machinery in any event, even though they haven’t got a market for the capacity of that automated machine. They then purchase that machine and they put it in place and what’s the outcome of that? They are then able to produce more with less manpower because of the automation. That means they are able to meet the current demand with fewer people involved, so that instead of creating, instead of stimulating employment, you are in fact acting detrimentally to the employment picture.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Your whole argument is premised on the assumption that the automated equipment is where the money will go.

Mr. Deans: Well, let me tell you that I haven’t seen many people buy hand-cranked machinery, at least recently.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Of course not, but you have seen them going into machinery for new product lines.

Mr. Deans: And I also know that when people buy production machinery the tendency is to attempt to get more automated machinery, and you can’t deny that. I worked in the industry for a number of years and every single thing that we did in the machinery industry -- I worked in an industry that designed and manufactured production machinery --

Mr. J. A. Taylor: How about the construction industry?

Mr. Deans: Oh we will talk about construction in a minute if you would like, if you really want to get into this.

Every order that was placed was for a more highly automated machine than the one which was already in place on the floor, in the line, on every occasion. Where there was more automated machinery available it was purchased, and where there wasn’t if it was simply for replacement purposes, when there was a cutback in production they tended not to try to replace the machinery because it wasn’t necessary. Okay?

So if you look at what you are trying to do, it doesn’t work. This kind of move is useless. What had to be done was to stimulate the sales over here. The production is already capable of meeting stimulated sales, but the sales were not being stimulated. So that if you were going to do anything at all, it had to be at the selling end and not at the buying end. All right? Not at the manufacturing end. Now what do you say?

Mr. R. G. Eaton (Middlesex South): We are doing that, too.

Hon. Mr. Meen: We are doing that at the other end.

Mr. Deans: Now what you’re faced with is this: Let’s assume they all take advantage of it. Let’s assume that everybody that can does take advantage of this and every single piece of machinery that can be replaced is replaced. Let’s assume that every piece that can be replaced is replaced.

Hon. Mr. Meen: But your whole argument is specious, because it’s founded on the replacement of machinery rather than extension of facilities.

Mr. Deans: No, no. We have already agreed --

Hon. Mr. Meen: Who agreed?

Mr. Deans: -- that there is no need by most industry in the current economy for an expansion of their productive capacity.

Hon. Mr. Meen: I haven’t agreed to that.

Mr. Deans: You haven’t agreed to that? Then you don’t know what’s going on now.

Mr. Germa: How many are unemployed in Ontario today?

Mr. Deans: There’s no point in me even talking to you then about it if you don’t understand that when you’re only producing at 70 per cent or less of your productive capacity, there’s no need for you to buy new machinery to produce more when you haven’t got a market for it.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Not more of the same product.

Mr. Deans: Now if you don’t agree with that, I don’t know how we can ever make the point with you. If you can’t understand that, then you’re in real trouble; you’re in real trouble if you don’t understand it.

But we go on. Let’s assume that they do, in fact, replace the machinery that’s in line, the stuff that can be replaced. Let’s even assume they buy new stuff; that they don’t replace it, they do buy new stuff along your line. What happens then is that the new machinery, being much more automated as it always is, that machinery requires fewer people to make it operate. The productive capacity is increased, but there is no market for the product. You are, therefore, able to produce more in less time with more highly-automated machinery and with fewer man-hours of work. You therefore create more unemployment; particularly where we’re not in a growing economy, and we’re not at the moment. Now what happens? Who benefits from this purchase?

Well, we’ve discovered the man who works in the shop doesn’t benefit. The consumer doesn’t benefit, because there is a sufficient amount being produced to meet the consumer demand. And so then the person who benefits must be the person who manufactures the machinery. Now if that person lived in Ontario or even in Canada, if that machinery was being produced somewhere within the confines of this country, then we would benefit. There would be a stimulation to that particular manufacturer or those manufacturers and that would create a great deal more economic movement.

Unfortunately, those people aren’t located in Canada. I venture to say almost all of the production machinery purchased today is manufactured outside of this country. It’s manufactured in the United States, it’s manufactured in Sweden, it’s manufactured in Germany, it’s manufactured in other parts of the world. Some of it’s manufactured in Japan, though not much of it. So that you find that any of the production machinery that’s going to be purchased is manufactured elsewhere and it is to that economy that the benefit flows. The investment of dollars here flows to there, the employment that’s created is there; and, therefore, the benefits are there. The non-benefits are here, where you can produce no more and where you employ fewer people.

So that this kind of manoeuvre at this particular point in this inflationary period, with the economy on the downturn, can only be detrimental to the overall economy of the province.

Now let’s go back to a few years ago. I made a similar kind of an argument a number of years ago over something called the reduction in machinery tax. It was called the machinery tax rebate, as I recall. We asked the government, on a number of occasions over two years to produce figures which would show there was an additional job which could be identified as having been created as the result of the production machinery rebate. Not one single job could be identified; not one.

I suggest to you that the argument with regard to employment will be parallel this time to the time some four years ago, or three years ago -- I can’t recall the exact date -- when you brought in a similar measure. It didn’t work then and it won’t work now.

This kind of measure we can well do without. There’s someone in the government -- I don’t know who it is -- but someone in the government has some misguided view of the way people produce things. Someone doesn’t seem to understand the impact on the existing economy of this kind of move.

If we were in a growing economy where there was a crying need for further production and the manufacturers, for some reason or other, were having difficulty in getting things retooled to meet that growing economy, a move like this might make some sense. Maybe it would make some sense, as was suggested earlier, if this would be used over a period of time to try to stimulate the development of a machinery manufacturing industry sector in Ontario and in Canada. But this kind of measure, as you have put it forward, cannot possibly benefit the Province of Ontario. It can’t possibly benefit us, other than to put additional dollars into the pockets of people who had already made up their mind to buy machinery, that’s all.

There can’t be an employment benefit, there can’t be a production benefit, and there can’t be a manufacturing impetus benefit; because there isn’t a sufficient length of time. If you had meant this to work, really, you would have to look ahead five to six years to see it actually beginning to form in terms of the establishment of a production machinery manufacturing sector in the Province of Ontario. If this had been designed to stimulate those small industries which currently produce certain kinds of machinery to go into the business in a larger way and to try to create additional markets for the machinery they produce and to produce additional lines of machines in order to meet existing needs in the country and in the province that would have made some sense. But that is a long-term proposition; it isn’t met in 23 months, that takes a number of years to develop.

If you were talking about giving particular benefit to Canadian production machinery manufacturers which would have enabled them to diversify their operations and search out, first of all, and then attempt to tool up for the manufacture of machinery which is needed in Canada but which is not currently manufactured in Canada, I would have said that was a good move. But the number of months -- is it 21 or 23?

Mr. Stokes: It’s 21.

Mr. Deans: Twenty-one months. In the 21 months available there is neither time for the existing manufacturers to make an accurate assessment, nor is there the incentive; because they know full well that in 21 months this measure no longer pertains and we end up back where we started. They are at a disadvantage vis-à-vis the capacity of manufacturers outside the country to produce in larger quantity and thereby take advantage of economies of scale.

Could I move the committee rise, it being 5 o’clock?

Mr. Deans moves that the committee rise and report.

Motion agreed to.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

Mr. Chairman: Mr. Speaker, the committee of the House begs to report progress and asks for leave to sit again.

Report agreed to.

PRIVATE MEMBERS’ HOUR: NOTICE OF MOTION NO. 2

Clerk of the House: Notice of motion No. 2 by Mr. Lane:

Resolution: That ambulances operated by the emergency services department of the Ministry of Health in northern Ontario be equipped with emergency electrocardiograph monitoring and treatment equipment together with attendants properly trained in its use and operation.

Mr. Lane moves resolution No. 2.

Mr. J. Lane (Algoma-Manitoulin): Mr. Speaker, the resolution which I have had on the order paper for some time and which I would like to deal with at this time, is actually the brain child of Dr. G. F. Trobridge of Sudbury. After training in England, Dr. Trobridge arrived in Sudbury nine years ago and later joined forces with Dr. Field to make an open heart surgery team for the Sudbury area. We are, indeed, very fortunate to have doctors of this calibre in the north and I’m sure many lives have been saved as the result of the combined efforts of these brilliant doctors. However, we have found that a very high percentage of heart disease victims are dead on arrival and regardless as to how many clever doctors we have in our hospitals they cannot save the lives of heart victims unless these people get to the hospitals. alive. That, basically, Mr. Speaker, is what this resolution pertains to.

Although I am very proud to be a northerner, one fault of the north is the great distance people must travel to receive proper medical attention of one kind or another. I realize that some health problems are not closely related to a time factor, but many are, in particular, dreaded heart disease. This matter has been of great concern to me for some time. When I hear about the survey that Dr. Trobridge conducted, I requested his advice regarding this survey and suggested that I bring the matter before this House in the form of a resolution or a private members’ bill. I had a reply from Dr. Trobridge, dated Oct. 22, 1974, and with your permission, Mr. Speaker, I would like to read into the record a portion of this letter:

“In 1970 I performed some work in northern Ontario with the help of the department of emergency services of the Ministry of Health, which demonstrated that it was possible in the context of northern Ontario to monitor a patient’s electrocardiograph from a moving ambulance on most of the highways around Sudbury. The primary purpose of this work was to demonstrate that it would be possible to detect serious cardiac irregularity in patients being transported by ambulance with a reliability that could lead to satisfactory emergency treatment while still in the ambulance.

“I felt this could lead to improving the chances of the patient with an acute heart attack reaching hospital alive. At the time, the research was only directed toward the feasibility of transmitting the cardiograph and we showed that in the vast majority of cases such monitoring could be achieved in a technically satisfactory manner.

“The experiment was terminated in 1971 and so far as we in northern Ontario are concerned no further action has resulted.

“For the results of this experiment to have been applied successfully, ambulance drivers and attendants would have had to be trained to perform cardiac massage and electrical defibrillation with the intent that they could perform these functions in the ambulance on the direction of a central coronary care unit registered nurse, who would have interpreted the cardiograph. Possibly also the ambulance drivers could have been trained to start the administration of appropriate intravenous medications. Authority for these actions would of course require special legislation.

“Subsequent to the above research, I also considered the plight of the patient with an acute heart attack living a distance from Sudbury, who is admitted to one of the smaller hospitals such as Little Current, Espanola or Elliot Lake. In these hospitals, cardiac monitoring and defibrillation is possible as the equipment exists, but continuous monitoring of the patient as in a larger hospital coronary care unit is impossible and the nurses concerned do not have enough continuing exposure to these problems to be able to interpret the findings and take emergency action. This means that the chances of survival of cardiac arrest in a small hospital are less than in a large hospital.

“In order to combine both these problems I considered the possibility of central computer-assisted monitoring of coronary care patients in hospitals right across northern Ontario. I feel the best approach to offering a first-rate service for sufferers of heart disease in northern Ontario would be a central computer-assisted monitoring service for the patients in the hospital, and the operator of this room would also take care in terms of monitoring of the patients in transit in ambulances. At the same time, under suitable legislation, the ambulance drivers would be trained in the treatment of cardiac arrest and possibly in the administration of drugs.

“The same monitoring service could be used to assist in the transport of other very sick patients. The continuously open telephone lines between Sudbury and other centres would, when not in use for cardiograph transmissions, undoubtedly be used for other medical communications and indirectly help to maintain a high standard of medicine though northern Ontario.”

Members will note that Dr. Trobridge mentions that ambulance attendants would have to be trained in the operation of this equipment and the administration of appropriate intravenous medication. It is estimated that this would require an extra three or four hours training for the ambulance attendants and, of course, special legislation to permit the attendants to carry out this function.

I continued to correspond with Dr. Trobridge on this proposal requesting more information, including statistics. I would again like to read into the record a portion of a letter which I received from him dated Jan. 15, 1975:

“It seems that in the Sudbury area with a population of a little over 180,000 there are normally seven ambulances. During 1974 these ambulances answered approximately 9,000 calls. Of these approximately 420 were due to heart disease. There were approximately 185 patients reputedly dead on arrival.

“There are no accurate statistics to indicate how many of these so-called dead-on-arrival patients were in fact dead, and how many could have been saved. The ambulance men were questioned as to their memory and it seems likely that 35 of these patients were not necessarily dead at the time of arrival of the ambulance and within electrocardiograph monitoring and resuscitation some of them may have stood a chance.

“In the research I did a few years ago I demonstrated that using a cardiograph amplifier and ordinary ambulance radio, with, if necessary, landline telephone, it was possible to transmit cardiographs from the ambulance, moving or stationary, over a very considerable portion of the Sudbury regional municipality. There is no doubt there are many black areas, in such areas as rock cuts, but these do not matter. What is more important is that the furthest outlying places are now beyond radio range but the proportion of the population involved there is small. We also showed that over a greater distance the ambulance could always transmit the cardiograph to the nearest ambulance base station by radio and by placing the handset of the telephone on the loudspeaker the electrocardiograph signal could be satisfactorily received at any distance. Instructions resulting from those cardiographs could of course, be returned via telephone and retransmitted by radio.

“At the present time the cheapest way in which each ambulance could be equipped would be with one of the two-man team being fully instructed in the use of equipment and the treatment of the patient. The equipment would consist of an electrocardiograph amplifier transmitter, costing approximately $350, and a defibrillator (an instrument for administering an electric shock to start the heart) at a cost of about $1,000, i.e. about $1,350 per ambulance. It is anticipated that the existing radio network would be adequate to start the scheme though if 100 per cent coverage was wanted, intermediate repeater stations for the radio system would be required. I personally feel that we have to accept it that there are certain limitations in terms of complete coverage for northern Ontario.

“I feel the signals obtained from the patient in the ambulance should be received at an intensive care unit or a coronary care unit so that a nurse well trained in the management of cardiac arrest and normally expected to act in such situations on her own initiative could interpret the cardiograph and advise the ambulance attendants. I do not believe it is necessary, possible, or even desirable that all tracings would be seen by a doctor. Having interpreted such tracings it would be the duty of such nurse to advise as to the necessary treatment, including electric shock treatment.

“It is also felt desirable that the ambulance attendants should be permitted to start intravenous therapy so that life-saving drugs may be given very fast. Such drugs would be used to prevent the heart stopping or to support it in case of repeated failure. Again, therapy could be directed via radio or ultimately might be used at the discretion of the ambulance attendants themselves, depending on their training.

“If the ambulance men are working under supervision three or four hours of training in relation to cardiac massage, respiratory support and defibrillation is all that would be necessary. However, if they are to work on their own initiative they would need a considerably longer period, perhaps several weeks, and this would be more costly but at the same time, probably very much more productive of results.

“I have inquired concerning the number of ambulances in northern Ontario from Mattawa to Kenora, and north of Parry Sound and it seems there is approximately 50 ambulances. Not all of these have full-time attendants but if they did we would be considering approximately 400 ambulance attendants of staff of these vehicles.

“It seems that at the present time the ambulance men have no legal authority even to institute cardiac massage, which is the elementary first aid life-saving procedure. Needless to say the rules are broken as in the following example. A man suffered a cardiac arrest in downtown Sudbury. His son started cardiac massage and artificial respiration. The ambulance arrived 15 or 20 minutes later and the ambulance man continued the cardiac massage all the way to the hospital (presumably illegally). My partner and I then resuscitated the man who recovered. He later underwent open heart surgery successfully and is now in good health.

“Surely the ambulance men must be given legal support to carry out first aid measures as in this example, where if the ambulance men had followed the rules they would have killed the patient.

“I feel I should point out that this whole subject is still controversial in the minds of some doctors who feel reluctant to allow paramedical personnel to undertake potentially dangerous therapy. I agree training is necessary and to some degree supervision is necessary. If we are to make any more impressions on the horrifyingly high mortality from cardiac disease, I feel the profession must accept help from the paramedics groups, and at the same time support them wholeheartedly.”

I realize my friends in the large urban areas will not really appreciate what Dr. Trobridge is proposing or the message that I am trying to get across today. Therefore, I will try to compare the large urban areas to the far-flung rural areas of the north.

Under normal circumstances, in most urban areas a person suffering a serious heart attack could be picked up by an ambulance and rushed to a large hospital in a matter of minutes. But in parts of my riding it would be a matter of one to two hours, and in the more remote areas of the north it could be several hours.

For a remote area the best method of transportation is flying the patient to the hospital. However, in many cases the weather conditions will not permit flying. In my opinion, Dr. Trobridge’s proposal makes a great deal of good sense. If this plan was acted upon, we in the north may at last have an equal or near equal chance to our southern cousins of surviving the dreaded heart disease.

I realize that many people will say that we cannot afford to spend the money. My reply is that if we save even a few lives each year the cost would indeed have been very small. If we must control costs, let’s cut back on our Cadillac requirements regarding building hospitals, homes, homes for the aged, and so on. While bricks, stone and marble look nice, they do not save lives. I, for one, would rather see a less elaborate building and have the good feeling that the money saved in this manner was actually saving lives in northern Ontario.

Mr. Speaker, I am very interested in the opinion of the hon. members regarding this proposal. I hope the speakers from all parties will at least support the resolution in principle so that we will have a good case to present to the Ministry of Health for its consideration.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Windsor-Walkerville.

Mr. B. Newman (Windsor-Walkerville): Thank you, Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of resolution 2 standing in the name of the previous speaker. The resolution reads:

“That ambulances operated by the emergency services department of the Ministry of Health in northern Ontario be equipped with emergency electrocardiograph monitoring and treatment equipment together, with attendants properly trained in its use and operation.”

At the outset, Mr. Speaker, may I say what is good for the south is also good for the north. The reverse likewise is true; what is good for the north is likewise good for the south.

I support the resolution, knowing full well that there may be some costs involved. But how do you place a value on an individual’s life? I know the Minister of Health (Mr. Miller) is going to come along and say, “We are very cost conscious today. We are going to come along and curtail services,” and so forth. But, Mr. Speaker, you don’t curtail services such as the one suggested by the member whose resolution we are here discussing.

I wonder how many of us have seen an electrocardiograph machine? I happen to have been involved with one at one time or another in my earlier days. I know full well that the piece of equipment is not necessarily operated by just the ordinary individual. It requires quite some training, and this is where I think the first requisite has to be fulfilled.

Before we can implement a programme such as that recommended here, I think the community colleges are going to have to become deeply involved in developing more paramedical personnel. They will have to do this in co-operation with the medical authorities, with the doctors, the dentists and any other medical professionals who may be part of the health services team. I think there is a real place for paramedics and, in this instance, for the paramedical ambulance driver, so to speak. Gone are the days when all the ambulance driver needed was a first aid certificate and a chauffeur’s licence.

Mr. R. Haggerty (Welland South): It was a three-week course.

Mr. B. Newman: No, it was a little longer than a three-week course. I think it was a 12-week course because I conducted courses in first aid for the St. John Ambulance Association for years and years. It took approximately 12 weeks then, and that was one day a week. But even then, you didn’t know enough concerning the delivery of health services. I think programmes could be set up by the community colleges where individuals could be trained for this specific function; that is, the function of being an ambulance operator, driver and a paramedic.

Mr. Speaker, the member makes mention of the number of ambulances in the north and the number of trained personnel. Well, Mr. Speaker, when we get to the south, we have that greater population and we really have a greater need in the south than you do in the north. This is not to say that they don’t have the need and they don’t deserve it. As I said earlier, what is good for the south is good for the north, and we should never forget the north.

Mr. J. E. Stokes (Thunder Bay): Not necessarily.

Mr. B. Newman: As I said earlier, Mr. Speaker, the first aid certificate is no longer good enough. Individuals driving ambulances are going to have to be fairly skilled; they’re really going to have to be paramedics. They’re going to have to be part of a health service team. They are going to be the troops at the front line. They are going to be the first contact with the patient. The quicker treatment can be undertaken, the greater the chances for survival.

As far as health services go, it is almost the same as the fire department. The quicker the lire department can get to the scene of the fire, the more likely they can put out the fire. The quicker the health services team -- the paramedic, the ambulance driver, with the equipment mentioned in this resolution -- gets to the scene of the individual, the more likely the chance of survival for that individual.

Mr. Speaker, when one looks at American television there is one programme that deals with paramedics. The extent to which the paramedic and the extent to which we can deliver health services to all parts of a province or a state or a community are concerned is really just as far as one’s imagination wishes one to go. Naturally, there are going to be costs involved in some instances -- some substantial cost -- and we can’t come along and just let costs carry us away. We have to develop the personnel so that we can get the maximum use out of them with the best training and at the most reasonable cost possible.

Mr. Speaker, with the resolution that the member has introduced, I can foresee that by means of electronic equipment -- that is, your CB or other electronic device -- we could be monitoring the individual as soon as the ambulance arrives on the scene. Likewise, we could be relaying all of, this information to a central dispatch which, in turn, could be connected either directly or indirectly to a hospital. Proper treatment information could be relayed back to the paramedic who is attending the person suffering from the cardiac problem.

Mr. Speaker, I made mention of the need being greater in the south than in the north. I make mention of that only because of population densities -- no other reason. There is probably the environmental damage that may be greater in parts of the south than it is in the north. As a result, respiratory and heart conditions may be a little more acute, a little more frequent in the south as opposed to the north.

I understand, Mr. Speaker, from a brief presented to the Ministry of Health back on June 25, 1974, it was requested that a heart-lung pump be established in the city of Windsor. The group in their submission made mention that cardiovascular diseases cause 55 per cent of all deaths. One can see if cardiovascular problems cause 55 per cent, there is need for an electrocardiograph and other types of equipment in ambulances -- and how important they happen to be.

I know the ministry is not going to approve this. It is going to look up economies instead and say this is too expensive. We can’t put a value on an individual’s life. The Ministry of Health did put a value on individuals’ lives when it came to the city of Windsor and denied the community a heart-lung pump after 43,000 people signed a petition requesting that type of equipment. After the equipment had been purchased -- and purchased, in my opinion, with the full consent of the community -- the ministry denied its installation.

I would think, Mr. Speaker, the Ministry of Health will not go along with this type of resolution.

I can also see in this a real urgent need when I look at a headline in my own paper of Jan. 17, 1975: “Committee urges Coronary Units in All Hospitals.” We can see how coronary problems are probably the problem of greatest importance in today’s society. Unless we can come along and have ambulances and personnel trained to be the first line of defence when they come to a patient who is suffering from a coronary problem I am afraid that the incidence of death from coronary conditions will increase and not decrease.

I am not a doctor and as a result probably I don’t have the authority of the member who will be speaking for the government side shortly. I hope he can come along and set the record straight. I hope we will have his support likewise so that all three parties can after some fashion convince the Ministry of Health that the resolution as introduced by the member is deserving of support and is deserving of implementation not only in the northern reaches of the province but throughout the province.

I don’t think for one minute, Mr. Speaker, that we should say that every ambulance should have this type of equipment but at least in the south there should be as many ambulances as the health services in the community think should be equipped with this type of equipment.

I hope the government accepts the resolution as presented by the member and that we have action following it. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Thunder Bay.

Mr. Stokes: Mr. Speaker, I would like to rise to support the resolution as far as it goes. I would have hoped, though, we could have been here today discussing a matter which is far more serious, far more encompassing than what is contained in this particular resolution.

I note that the member who introduced it spent a good deal of time indicating the need f or this particular service in the Sudbury area. I want to suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, and to the mover of the resolution that in my estimation the delivery of health services in the north -- and this resolution deals particularly with one aspect of health services in the north -- needs a complete overhaul. When he mentioned existing ambulances to be equipped with electrocardiagraph units and the necessary paramedical personnel to operate them I wish he had mentioned a good many areas of the province which don’t even have ambulance services.

I want to call to the attention of the member for Algoma-Manitoulin and the member for Oshawa (Mr. McIlveen) who seems to be paying a good deal of attention to the discussion here, that we have areas, such as between the city of Thunder Bay and Ignace, a stretch of 156 miles along Highway 17, which don’t have ambulances. I could call their attention to an area stretching from Highway 17 up to Pickle Lake, from Ignace to Pickle Lake, a distance of 192 miles, that doesn’t have an ambulance of any kind. There is no health delivery system of any kind sponsored by this government. At the top end of the road, 20 miles from the top end, we have an excellent clinic funded, operated and staffed by the Department of National Health and Welfare which is a federal agency. The people who pay OHIP premiums at the top end of that road must rely on services provided by a federal agency. As a result of the dependence of well over 1,000 people in that area on this clinic, the staff are overworked and the facilities are overtaxed.

I would have preferred to have been standing here today discussing a complete revamping and a complete overhaul of the health delivery systems in the far north. I think that if we are going to serve the needs of people in the north, whether it be electrocardiograph equipment or something else, we must have much more mobility than we have at the present time.

There is anywhere from 70 miles upward between medical facilities. If you want to go from Manitouwadge to Marathon, it is about 70 miles, Mr. Speaker. If you want to go from Nipigon to the city of Thunder Bay, its 71 miles. If you want to go from Pickle Lake to the city of Thunder Bay, where many of them have to go even to get a tooth pulled, it is 347 miles. If you want to go from Pickle Lake to Dryden, it’s about 250 miles. When you are talking about these distances, Mr. Speaker, you are talking about a need for greater mobility, and greater flexibility in the delivery of health systems. I think that this is something that this government hasn’t come to grips with.

I see there are two former Ministers of Health in the House, the member for Ontario (Mr. Dymond) and the member for Quinte (Mr. Potter). Both seem to have taken an active interest in our problems. However, before they got around to solving any of these problems in a major way, they were moved to other responsibilities and here we are speaking about a private member’s bill, trying to convince the present minister that the health delivery systems in northern Ontario are less than adequate.

Mr. Speaker, we need a greater commitment to redress the neglect and the indifference of many, many branches of the Ministry of Health to the inadequacy of health services, whether they be paramedical or otherwise. Concurrent with that, we need a commitment from a good many of the professions. We have a great deal of difficulty in attracting doctors, dentists, psychologists, and physiotherapists -- you name it. We have those kinds of problems.

That’s why I am asking anybody within hearing distance for a complete review of all of the existing facilities that people down here take for granted and that are just non-existent in the north, unless people are prepared to travel in many cases several hundred miles to take advantage of them. As I have said so often in this House before, a good many of these people -- in fact, all of them -- pay the same OHIP premiums as you and I down here in Metropolitan Toronto, Mr. Speaker. And, of course, you can walk or drive a few city blocks and have access to these services. That is not the case in northern Ontario.

I want to commend the mover of this resolution for having brought it in. It is a small step in the right direction but, as I have said, I would have been much happier standing here discussing a completely mobile and diversified health delivery system. I think we need a new approach to a long-standing problem. I have even gone so far as to suggest that we even put something as elementary as telephones along our main highways, so that if an accident occurred or if a situation arose such as is envisaged by the mover of this resolution, at least we would have some contact with a base hospital someplace where ambulance attendants might call upon the advice and the assistance of some doctor in a community perhaps 60 or 70 miles away, make an on-the-spot diagnosis and ask for some kind of advice, at least until they got somebody into hospital.

Of course, when you’re talking about areas in the north you’re not talking about areas that necessarily have all of the services that are available in Windsor, in Sudbury, in Ottawa or in Metropolitan Toronto. Most communities in the north have a small hospital, with 15 to 25 beds. Many of the medical staff there are not surgeons; they’re not well skilled. And a lot of the sophisticated medical procedures that you people down here take for granted, are not available. If you can’t find the service in the city of Thunder Bay, even though it may be 250 miles away, on many occasions we have mercy flights by the Department of National Defence -- and indeed in some instances by the Ministry of National Resources -- to fly somebody from a far remote community to the city of Thunder Bay and then to transfer them down to Toronto, where these facilities and medical services are available.

I think this is just a small step in the right direction. The mover of the resolution was well intended -- and I don’t want to take away from his resolution -- but I think we should have a complete overhaul of the delivery of health services and a detailed look at the kind of facilities that are available. I think one of the underpinnings for a complete and adequate medical delivery system in the north is the need for flexibility to suit the needs in a particular situation. Another is the need for almost complete mobility. If it’s a dental clinic, it should be on wheels because if it’s needed in one place today and 50 miles down the road next week, I don’t think we should have to rely on an antiquated railway car that’s steamheated and has to be brought all the way down to Toronto to be refitted and everything else. You know, that’s 1900 stuff. I think we should bring our health delivery systems into the 20th century. I suggest the only way to do it is to have mobility and flexibility to meet the needs in a given area.

I support the resolution as far as it has gone, but I would prefer that a complete revamping of all of the health delivery systems in northern Ontario be undertaken forthwith. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Oshawa.

Mr. C. E. McIlveen (Oshawa): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I listened with very great interest to the hon. member for Windsor-Walkerville and the hon. member for Thunder Bay, and they brought up many interesting points on health delivery systems. I, for one, would certainly appreciate taking part in some future bills concerning the health delivery system, not only for the north but for the south as well.

Mr. Haggerty: Introduce one then.

Mr. McIlveen: Well I’m waiting for the member for Thunder Bay because I hadn’t thought of many of the things that he suggested.

Mr. Stokes: I didn’t interject. It was somebody up there.

Mr. McIlveen: Oh?

Mr. Stokes: I am listening with great interest.

An hon. member: It was the member for Welland South.

Mr. McIlveen: Well, I will follow his lead any time.

I want to endorse the remarks which the hon. member for Algoma-Manitoulin has raised with respect to health-care delivery in northern Ontario. I state, without hesitation or reservation, that the central importance of an effective health-care delivery system is its capacity to save lives and to alleviate, in whatever way possible, the degree and intensity of sickness which any individual may experience. We all want to enjoy good health. We all want to live as long as possible.

The great hallmark of an effective health-care system lies in its preventive role, the ability to help people before they reach hospital or to prevent that possibility from ever arising. Preventive medicine not only saves lives, but in the long run it reduces the high cost of lengthy hospital care.

As we all realize, the cost of financing Ontario’s outstanding health-care system has grown substantially in the past few years because of a combination of factors. The Health Ministry, recognizing the trends of higher cost, has placed greater emphasis on the priority of preventive care.

An examination of programmes looking after our senior citizens reflects the significance of home care wherever possible and feasible, instead of placing them in nursing homes or hospitals. I cite to members several other instances where the health ministry and all health professionals are working together to realize that great potential.

What my colleague’s resolution aims to achieve is further strengthening of our health-care system to help those cardiac patients have a greater opportunity of life by establishing a strong communications network between the ambulance and the cardiac care unit in a hospital in emergency situations. What is required to create such a communications network involves technical and manpower considerations. By installing electrocardiograph monitoring and electric shock equipment in each ambulance and through the use of telephone and radio suitable instructions could be issued to ambulance attendants so as to ensure the cardiac patient is alive when he or she reaches hospital.

I haven’t had a great deal of personal experience in this field, but I have a few patients alive today who were called DOA on arrival at hospital and, because of monitoring and the proper defibrillation techniques, are walking and alive and contributing to society today.

As the member for Algoma-Manitoulin has pointed out, the proper use of this equipment would necessitate sufficient training in cardiac massage for the ambulance attendants and the appropriate training for a registered nurse in interpreting cardiography correctly.

Naturally, it would be necessary to alter the legislation which presently prohibits ambulance attendants from confirming a diagnosis or doing any work of a medical nature in which an exercise of medical judgement is needed. The primary purpose, I suspect. is to protect ambulance personnel from potential cases of liability.

In supporting this resolution, I believe it is most important to realize fully the legal implications of extending responsibilities of ambulance attendants into areas of medical judgement. However, legal barriers should not remain as the major justification for preventing assistance to people suffering from cardiac arrest. Nor should the costs of installing this type of equipment be used as an all-encompassing argument. Really, the human versus the cost factor in devising any formula to balance the extension of health-care services against rising costs is a difficult, if not sometimes impossible, task.

As I understand the proposal, the cost of installing an electrocardiograph amplifier transmitter is about $350 per ambulance, and a defibrillator can run anywhere between $1,000 and $1,350 per ambulance; including cost of equipment, manpower training, and maintenance cost for this system.

Many of us who live in southern Ontario can argue that such a system should be made province-wide. Yet there is a great deal of merit in initiating the system in the north to overcome great geographical distances and travel difficulties in getting a patient to hospital alive. Despite some current criticisms about the difficulties of obtaining an ambulance in emergencies we, in our southern urban centres, have great access to ambulance service. I can tell you from personal experience in my area our ambulance operations are providing an efficient and quick service and are living up to every one of their commitments.

The proposal is designed to cut down on the number of heart attack victims. Latest statistics show over 40 per cent of deaths from heart disease occur before the age of 70. Translated into what that means to society, it means that society is robbed of 200,000 years of productivity in any one year.

Those are startling figures when placed in the context of this proposal. Despite potential legal and cost problems in this proposal, I would urge all members to support it. At the very least I would urge the health ministry to initiate a pilot project for some part of the north to determine in a scientific and objective way the number of people who can be saved by having such equipment in an ambulance. Let us remove any doubts about the flexibility of this proposal on a widespread basis by undertaking a well-developed pilot project.

I commend the hon. member for Algoma-Manitoulin in bringing this resolution to the attention of the House. I believe his genuine interest in helping people of the north refutes most clearly the often-repeated perception that members of this government have a bricks-and-mortar fixation in the delivery of health care. Here is an outstanding example of a member most desirous of advancing services to people. For that we owe him a debt of gratitude --

Mr. Stokes: The member’s colleague said there was too much preoccupation with bricks and mortar.

Mr. McIlveen: -- in wanting to save lives from the dread disease of heart disease. What was that last remark?

Mr. Stokes: The member’s colleague said there was too much preoccupation with bricks and mortar. He said, “Let’s put some more money in this.”

Mr. McIlveen: I just agreed with him. I think he is dead on. I think there are many pilot projects such as this where one could do a true study to find what the needs are from Thunder Bay to Ignace. I don’t know what they are at the moment but I do know there are many problems in different areas. The member for Thunder Bay pointed out some of them and, most certainly, I for one would be willing to participate in any project in the health care delivery system because I think there’s a great need across this province.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Welland South.

Mr. Haggerty: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise to support the resolution presented by the member for Algoma-Manitoulin, that ambulances operated by the emergency services department of the Ministry of Health in northern Ontario be equipped with emergency electrocardiograph monitoring and treatment equipment together with attendants properly trained in its use and operation. I’m delighted to see that every speaker so far has endorsed the resolution. I think it warrants further consideration by the Ministry of Health and perhaps by the government members themselves.

I was particularly interested in the member for Oshawa’s finally supporting a bill dealing with medical treatment facilities in the Province of Ontario. He touched on a number of statistics that we’re all interested in. Particularly, he wound up his speech by saying he would endorse it on a pilot project. I think at this time anything is better than nothing. We’ll take half a loaf if we can get it even on a pilot project.

My main concern in dealing with the principle of the bill itself is that it deals only with northern Ontario. I can think of other communities in southern Ontario, particularly in my area, where under the new health councils that are being established almost any person who has a cardiac failure will have to go almost to the Toronto General Hospital just off to the east here because of a lack of facilities of equipment for heart patients in local hospitals.

I can think particularly of some of the hospital auxiliaries in my area that have gone out and purchased such equipment. I can think of the Port Colbourne General Hospital where the auxiliary has gone out and purchased this equipment, and it is providing excellent service there. I think much of it can be done, like anything else that is done, on an emergency basis. I can give much credit to the ambulance drivers today, with the limited training programmes that they have received so far, who are doing an excellent job.

As the member for Windsor-Walkerville and I have stated before, it’s time that we’re going to take an overall picture of our medical services in Ontario and that we’re going to have to come in with paramedics. I think this is the coming thing. Too often, Mr. Speaker, you can’t get a doctor at the scene of an accident on a highway. You can’t get one at almost any scene.

In an industrial accident or in the case of a man with heart failure on the streets, often when I walk down the streets in Toronto the very first thing I see on the scene where a person requires such treatment as this is a fire department truck. The firemen are called first. Then, about 10 minutes after, the ambulance comes. As the member for Oshawa stated, to buy a resuscitator or an inhalator would cost maybe $1,200, $1,500 or $1,800, whereas a monitoring device would be about $350 or something. There’s a saving right there.

I think when one looks upon the services that can be provided in an emergency, it is well worth while for the Minister of Health to come in with such a programme as suggested by the member for Algoma-Manitoulin. The end result, I suppose, is to have lives. In the age of electronics and computers, these things can be done by radio right from the emergency truck to the hospital.

The member for Windsor-Walkerville mentioned the TV programme “Emergency” on Saturday nights. Every youngster in the Province of Ontario is perhaps watching this programme, and they want to be a fireman or a doctor. This is a programme where you don’t see violence, and these youngsters are interested in such a programme.

There is another point I want to raise, Mr. Speaker. Ambulance driver qualifications come under the Employment Standards Act of the Province of Ontario; and do you know what the minimum rate is set at? It is $2.50. We want confidence in these people and their capabilities when they go to the scene of an emergency. They could say: “Look, all we are getting is $2.50 an hour. You are going to get the service you pay for.”

That’s one thing I think should be corrected. That rate should be removed from the Employment Standards Act and these persons should be receiving a decent income. Many of them in my area are doing the job by moonlighting. The only way they can survive is by moonlighting. I think it is time we must revise that particular section.

These men should be given upgrading in their qualifications for emergency treatment, and we should review that section in the Employment Standards Act. I think this would be a major step in the right direction and would encourage those persons to further advance their education.

It was mentioned by the member for Windsor-Walkerville that the place to educate them is in the community colleges. Nurses are being trained in the community colleges. Perhaps there is another thing, when I mention nurses, that we should include them in an ambulance call. They are in many instances fully qualified. In some cases they almost do as much as the doctor; this is what I’ve been told.

I was interested in the comments of the member for Oshawa where he mentioned the question about liability. I introduced a bill here some three or four years ago, a Good Samaritan Act that was to relieve persons from the liability in respect of volunteer emergency, medical and first aid services. I think that is a direction the government should be moving in, providing that Good Samaritan Act.

You can pick up the reports from the Workmen’s Compensation Board, Mr. Speaker. They have a programme for going out and training personnel in industry to be qualified for emergency treatment in case of an accident.

Mr. B. Newman: The member always gives good suggestions.

Mr. Haggerty: Always.

There is a possibility that these persons can be taken to the courts. I think the ambulance drivers are excluded. I think there are provisions under the Act that they are excluded from any possibility of liability. But, again, when you take a nurse, she could be available at the scene of an accident along the highway but it’s taboo with her to become involved. She won’t touch a person out there; and I think in many instances a doctor won’t either.

Mr. McIlveen: They cannot use a defibrillator.

Mr. Haggerty: In many cases doctors will not provide emergency treatment at the scene of an accident. In the case of a cardiac failure, perhaps the doctor says: “I don’t have the proper equipment and I won’t provide that emergency treatment.” He’ll not become involved.

I think all these things should be changed. I commend the member for Algoma-Manitoulin for bringing in the resolution. It’s a good resolution. I think if we have to try it on a pilot basis, then try it in the riding of the member for Thunder Bay. I think he’s indicated the lack of medical facilities in that area and we should be moving in the direction of providing these people with something up there.

Mr. McIlveen: We have to have the medical personnel who are interested and they now have the interest in Algoma-Manitoulin.

Mr. Haggerty: I’m sure there are interested personnel in the Thunder Bay area; in places like Schreiber.

An hon. member: We can train them.

Mr. Haggerty: Sure, we can train them; and this is what we are saying, train them.

I think it is a good resolution and I strongly support it. I’m sure all members will. I think there is an indication by the government members that the government will be bringing in legislation very shortly to help the member for Algoma-Manitoulin.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Sudbury.

Mr. M. C. Germa (Sudbury): Mr. Speaker, I’d like to say a few words on the resolution presented by the member for Algoma-Manitoulin, which would provide for the installation for electrocardiograph monitoring equipment in ambulances, particularly in northern Ontario.

I wholeheartedly support the proposition. He has made good arguments that due to the geographic area that northern Ontario encompasses, there is probably a greater need for such equipment in the northern part of the province than in any part of the province. However, I would also suggest, not being of a parochial nature, that this service, if it is implemented by the government, should not necessarily be unique to northern Ontario. I am sure there are parts of the southern part of the province too -- or that area which is not north of the French River, which is commonly designated northern Ontario -- there are some areas south of that line which are equally disbarred from nearby hospital facilities.

Presumably, the reason the member for Algoma-Manitoulin brought the resolution to the attention of this House is that the government must have seen fit to reject his proposal. Being a member of the government side, I am sure he must have gone to the department or to the minister with this idea and must have been rejected and he has now, therefore, come to the House in order to get an opinion and to go back to the minister --

An hon. member: A real fighter.

Mr. Germa: -- in order to have the government recognize there is a shortage of medical services in the northern part of the province. As the member for Thunder Bay pointed out, this is merely a Band-Aid that is being applied, but even a Band-Aid is welcome in some cases in northern Ontario.

I noted that the member for Algoma-Manitoulin was using one Dr. Trobridge as his consultant. I have had dealings with Dr. Trobridge and I know that he does run a heart unit in the Memorial Hospital in Sudbury. He’s quite an aggressive person. He appears to be quite well qualified for the work he is doing.

He is doing a lot of heart surgery there and I had reason to deal with him a year or so ago. He did get in touch with me to try and assist him in obtaining a nuclear-powered heart pacemaker for implant on one of his patients. The government at that time -- the minister being now the Minister of Correctional Services (Mr. Potter) -- was reluctant to grant permission to Dr. Trobridge to make this nuclear-powered heart pacemaker, despite the fact that he had already installed numerous, probably dozens, of ordinary pacemakers in various other people. He advised his patient that the only hope she had of getting one of these things was to contact her member of Parliament, who happened to be myself. I went to the minister and I had the greatest runaround you ever saw in your life, Mr. Speaker, trying to convince the ministry that they should supply Dr. Trobridge with this nuclear-powered pacemaker.

Eventually we did. The minister did concede and he did release one of these things off the shelf, in conjunction with the Atomic Energy Commission in Ottawa. It’s a nuclear-powered device and one has to go through the Atomic Energy Commission in Ottawa in order to get them to agree. But the main stumbling block seemed to be the cost. The cost of supplying this nuclear-powered device was five times as much as an ordinary powered device, even though one can show that there are favourable economics involved. The nuclear-powered unit will last for a period of 10 years, while the ordinary one would have to be replaced every second year. So over a 10-year period a person would have to undergo major surgery five times to have a new implant made, whereas if a nuclear-powered one was put in then the person would only require a new implant every 10 years. So there are the economics of saving on operating room costs, physician costs and everything else.

That gives members some idea of what kind of a man this Dr. Trobridge is. And even though the minister of the day said, “You’re going to get this one, but it’s the last one I’m going to give you,” because he wanted all of these implants to be done down here in Toronto in one of the big hospitals where they do nuclear-powered implants, despite the minister’s admonition that Trobridge isn’t getting another nuclear-powered pacer, we have had two more in Sudbury since that time.

By the way, the heart unit at Sudbury, where Trobridge works, is the only one in Ontario outside of the heart unit in Toronto that has done nuclear-powered pacemaker implants. It seems to me as a layman, to be a very progressive unit. They do a lot of work, and I know several people who have had good results from Trobridge.

If Trobridge recommends that this electrocardiograph monitoring system would be of benefit to the people in Sudbury, then I will go along with Trobridge. I think he is a very active person. According to the member for Algoma-Manitoulin, he seems to have already done some experiments in transmitting electrocardiograph signals and he knows there are certain weaknesses in the system if it were to be installed, If the ambulance is moving through hilly terrain, for instance -- and it will be if it has to go any place around the Sudbury area or even any place in northern Ontario -- it’s bound to be moving through rock cuts and there will be distortion of the radio signals. But that wouldn’t be much of a hardship, because you would be in a rock cut for only a minute or two or three at a time and then you would be out in the open again, so you could be monitored at least part of the time on your way to the hospital.

I would also like to give credit to the government for the installation of these ambulances sponsored by the Province of Ontario. Prior to the installation of this system, we had a hodge-podge all over the province where private operators were trying to supply ambulance service. I recall one person who had the contract in Sudbury used the ambulance for delivering newspapers all over the place. When he got an emergency signal, or the ambulance was needed, he would dump the papers on the street corner and tear off to pick up somebody and take him to the hospital, then come back to deliver his newspapers. This is the kind of service that we’ve had in Sudbury.

It would really be the icing on the cake if Sudbury, a city that has got the facility to experiment and, in Trobridge, the man with the willingness and the imagination to experiment, could be selected as the area of the province to conduct a pilot project. I certainly would be willing to support such a proposition and to encourage the government to accept this recommendation. I wholeheartedly support the proposition, and I do hope that the minister and the government will hear these words in the House and take the necessary steps to get moving on this project. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: This order of business is completed.

Clerk of the House: The second order, House in committee of the whole.

It being 6 o’clock, p.m., the House took recess.